Midnight Rodeo’s latest release “Thank you for your time” is an ode to the under appreciated worker.

‘9 to 5’ if Dolly Parton had a fuzz pedal…

Effortlessly ethereal, and exquisitely other worldly Midnight Rodeo’s new track Thank you for you time’ is an ode to the alienated, underpaid worker. Audibly alluring, a siren song, this is the music your mind listens to as it wanders off from it’s 9-5 reality, a customer is being out of order with you, your boss has just made an inappropriate comment, but you are elsewhere, escaping, dreaming knowing where you are is not where you’ll always be.

Thank You For Your Time

Made up of Midnight Rodeo is Maddy Chamberlain (vocals, tambourine), James McBride (guitar, vocals), William Crumpton (guitar, vocals), Harry Taylor (bass), Ferg Moran (drums), the Midnight Rodeo are a Nottingham based band who formed in 2021. Since then they’ve supported the likes of FEET,Black Doldrums and The Bug Club, establishing themselves as trailblazers in the indie/psychedelic pop scene.

‘Thank you for you time’ introduces a slight departure from the band’s thus far signature West Coast psychedelic stylings as they continue to diversify their sound.A dynamically rich lead guitar line dances around the ethereal vocal melody and driving bassline, all three elements responding to one another intuitively as the track builds through two anthemic choruses to one final heavy metal homage.

Lyrcially, Lead singer Maddy Chamberlain stands in solidarity with under-appreciated junior staff member, anyone that’s ever had to serve a piss-drunk stag party at a nightclub, suffered the cringe-inducing pantomime of a sales job or endured the eye-rolling shenanigans of a David Brent-esque line manager. It’s a vindicating dedication to the individual .

If it were for another era you could imagine them touring with the likes of the Beatles. If the painted people in A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte were playing a few instruments and singing a tune it would sound like “Thank you for you time’.

Escape the 9-5 and go see Midnight Rodeo live…

Live Date
22nd Oct – Nottingham, TBA
28th Oct – Norwich, Last Pub Standing NoGlum
29th Oct – Nottingham, The Chameleon
2nd Nov – Birmingham, The Night Owl 
4th Nov – Bristol, The Crofters Rights 
7th Nov – Hull, Polar Bear Music Club
10th Nov – Leicester, The Big Difference
16th Nov – Portsmouth, The Loft 
17th Nov – Southampton, Heartbreakers
18th Nov – Paris, Supersonic
23rd Nov – London, Sebright Arms
25th Nov – TBA
1st Dec – Leeds, The Royal Park Pub & Cellars
2nd Dec – Manchester, The Peer Hat
7th Dec – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
8th Dec – Sunderland, The Independent
9th Dec – Newcastle, Bobiks

English Teacher release ‘Nearly Daffodils’

It may be winter but there will be daffodils soon…

English Teacher-Photo Credit Tatiana Pozuelo

Art Punk tour de Force from Leeds, English Teacher, are back with their latest slice of abstract audio, exploring the brutalise of not prospering from your sacrifices.

Comprised of Lily Fontaine (vocals, rhythm guitar, synth) Douglas Frost (drums, vocals) Nicholas Eden (bass) and Lewis Whiting (lead guitar), the quartet have been releasing music under the moniker of ‘English Teacher’ since 2020. Their latest addition being ethereal “Nearly Daffodils”

Lily Fontaine explained: “‘Nearly Daffodils’ is about heartbreak and acceptance of unfulfilled potential. How, no matter how much you may want something, no matter how much effort you may put into something’s growth or development, no matter how beautiful you can envision its fruition; life is a bitch and about as unstoppable as a freight train”.

Nearly Daffodils English Teacher

Water your seeds and watch how the flowers grow. In this life, rife with hustle culture, pushing through and defying boundaries, exceeding expectations effotlessly it is easy to drown in the deluge of those all tending their gardens. You can dig, plant, care and hope but sometimes, there is frost and snow, an unstoppable obstacle in the way of letting you reap with you sow.

English Teacher delve masterfully into the agonising heartache of what may not be in ethereal track, Nearly Daffodils which boasts a radiant melody, full of optimism and wonder whilst the choppy instrumentals introduce the storm of overshadowing into the forecast. There are so many fields, how will you fill them?

English Teacher-Photo Credit Tatiana Pozuelo

How will creativity survive your own success? Look around, haven’t you got everything you wanted? Why is there so much space in a slight gap when the room is already full? That gap, that space, the size of failure, something not yet achieved, one more effort to prove yourself, but will you do it? How? When?

What happened to doing something out of true devotion rather than to keep up with someone else, a glass square on a glass screen, unseeing eyes can still feel mean. We are all so focused, so fascinating, it’s frustrating when it feels as though despite the superglue, the tape the nails and the screws, everything always comes loose. To fall is too feel and to feel is to be alive, failure is not a dead end it is a diversion, it is up to you where you go with it.

“Sometimes I want to make a home on it,

To look between the wheels I’m scared of being under.

I’ve started knitting in the mornings,

I like to hear the birds sing.”

Nearly Daffodils is the cognitive dissonance of what if and what is. It is hopeful, it is mournful ,it is humanity dressed up as an insightful indie song. It is however hard to pigeon hole into just one genre, somewhere in the haze of layered harmonies, and gritty guitar riffs this song wanders the corridors of the mind, a musical remedy for the mist. Flowing seamlessly from euphonious song to arresting spoken word, this track showcases the creative prowess of the quartet as they cartwheel over metamorphic metaphors and breakdown ballads, to produce a lyrical pool to dive into as you explore your own psyche.

English Teacher’s biting social commentary and unique musical soundscapes have certainly positioned the quartet as influential figures within the emerging indie elite.

Join them on their biggest UK Headline Tour to date:

21st Oct – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
22nd Oct – McChuills, Glasgow
23rd Oct – Cluny 2, Newcastle
24th Oct – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (sold-out)
26th Oct – Scala, London
27th Oct – The Louisiana, Bristol (sold-out)
28th Oct – Heartbreakers, Southampton (sold-out)
29th Oct – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton (sold-out)
31st Oct – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
1st Nov – Night & Day Cafe, Manchester (sold-out)

18th Nov – Elsewhere / Zone One, Brooklyn, NY
22nd Nov – Zebulon, Los Angeles, CA

Explore another world with the ‘Drawing Wings From The Light’ EP released by CIRCE.

An ethereal ode to escapism and a transcendent take on reality.

Circe Captured by Zak Watson

An audible tapestry of the Ethereal, Circe’s latest EP ‘Drawing Wings From The Light’ effortlessly encapsulates an otherworldly spirit. 

Drawing Wings From The Light

Embroidered with escapism, her voice offers a surreal experience, entering a dreamlike soundscape, it feels as though you’re listening to the songs with the sun in your eyes, you’re laying on the grass and you are comfortable. A future version of yourself forms as a silhouette, with indistinguishable features this shadow becomes a beacon of security and support providing welcome shade from the light, you feel solid, more human than before.

Eccentric and flamboyantly authentic this EP explores art, mythology and multi-dimensional forces, acheiving an audible experience unlike any other. Songs that feel like upturned earth after a thunderstorm, like blossoming violets in winter.

The EP started as an echo of what it would become 10 years ago when Circe was still a teenager. Witnessing the boisterous and brilliant, critically acclaimed play Jerusalem by the delectable Jez Butterworth, Circe was transported, exposed to an unexplored realm full of new selves and potential. Riot of Sunlight, the opening track to the EP was written as the first incarnation, becoming a display like ode to Jerusalem.

We are all the Universe, experiencing each other as we experience ourselves, strangers, curious strangers hoping to find a guiding light someone who will bring us back to who we are, or show us how to be the people we are meant to become. We are al mesmerised by a peaceful lake after hours int he dark wood, that once too fascinated us, a journey through the mist, we are all reaching for each other. Perhaps I too am reaching, but this EP touches on that, becoming that journey, a testament to our existence and what we all endure.

Glow by Circe

Glow offers an orchestral exploration of the soul, leaving us questioning ourselves,  we wonder what echoes  will we leave behind, if our actions define our essence what should we do and who should we listen to. Here, Circe sounds distorted, a distant voice that borderlines on disoriented with her delivery which makes it that much more divine to digest. Her humming feels like a heartbeat the driving force that guides the listener through an unravelling road she is the halo, the lighthouse we are searching for. A blend of electronic beats and reality epitomises my interpretation of her music, the ethereal fantasy and the monotonous reality, it is a cacophony of what could be, an ode to living happily.

Circe captured by Zak Watson

True to her name Circe’s songs host a certain sort of magic one may search for, for years only to find it under a fossilised pebble at the steps their town library a day after they’d giving up the journey. She is hypnotic, offering a kaleidoscope of different perspectives she shares through her sounds.

My Boy Aphrodite by Circe

A stand out track of  the EP is ‘My Boy Aphrodite’. Harmonic and deity like this song starts off as a rippling harp until an electronic sounding dagger slices through this illusion of peace and tranquilly, a strobe of reality akin to divine revelation breaking through to Circe’s captivating vocals, she is Zeus in this song commanding attention and power through her mesmerizing voice.

Aphrodite is the epitome of beauty, a beacon of sexuality. Circe discussed that her childhood best friend inspired the song; “a boy that used to wear my dresses and I would wear his suits. Both from nowhere, he saved my life, together we were goddesses, adorned in glitter and smiling faces music to the disapproval of the townsfolk.

Circe captured by Zak Watson

It’s also an ode to Bjork’s Venus as a boy a song and phrase that just blew open our baby teen world. Even though we didn’t have the vocabulary at the time, we were working through the sparkly fields of gender and queer identity questions, and the feelings we had about it all – in the safety net of a magical, surreal  Bjork song”

Experience the other world at her upcoming headline show at London’s Brixton venue the Windmill on September 21st, buy tickets here Keep up to date by following her socials.