Heartbreak

English Teacher release ‘Nearly Daffodils’

11th Oct 2023 — Leave a comment

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

Lucy Dacus: Night Shift

29th Aug 2023 — 1 Comment

It’s taken us 5 years but it’s worth it…

Lucy Dacus taken by Ebru Yildiz 2021

A collage of selves lay scattered, nestled in our memories, our sadness spread in ugly black smudges on the side of silk sheets, a good day in the form of a forgotten earring on an old friend’s nightstand, a favourite teddy still hoping in wait under our childhood bed. We are everywhere but within ourselves.

Lucy Dacus track Night shift explores the cognitive dissonance of a breakup, the longing for what can never be again and the gratitude of what can never be again. A broken heart is a second chance, another go, an opportunity for growth whilst simultaneously being a gaping wound, a gaunt expression with haunted hands and deceitful eyes, convincing you that everywhere you look your lover resides.

Lucy Dacus Night Shift Music video, released March 8 2023

This needs to look at them once more but knowing if you saw them again you would look away.  You go to their favourite bar, shop at their favourite store, wearing their favourite outfit and the perfume they once associated with you. Every day you devote your life to a shadow. Last month felt like the future and now where are you, wallowing in the space between where their arms once were and where you are now. but you’re trying to fill it, so you go to work, you wash your face, you go for a run, you keep running, you wash the floor, you go to work, you cry in the storage cupboard, you cry in the woods, standing in your running trainers, head aflame, lungs burning. Why couldn’t I be enough, if love is all we are then why did you leave?

The now iconic line “you’ve got a nine to five, so I’ll take the night shift’ powerfully epitomises the deliberate decision one makes when wanting to avoid a person, peeling ourselves away from who they used to be by forcing ourselves to explore different routes.

Night Shift by Lucy Dacus

Dacus so beautifully navigates the turmoil and resentment dictated by a premature departure of a lover. Her lyrics are hauntingly honest, full of empowering rage, propelled by a steady drumbeat, like a heart in a state of recovery, complimented by the building up riff of the guitar, like a heart in flight or fight mode, this juxtaposition of peace and war creating a heart wrenching symphony that sadly so many can relate too.

Why do we give each other flowers doomed to die? The wilted rose, once so vibrant and routed, sighing, tired in its glass pedestal, once a token of affection, now drooping. Love is a garden, not a diagonally cut stem, it is affected by the weather so you must shelter it, tend to it, keep it safe, respond to its needs, watch it thrive.

Then finally there is a fall of bitter peace, the relief that you can fill your life with stuff that isn’t them, not to distract yourself but because you want to, you start filling your life with light, eradicating all the shadows.

Poignant and insightful the narrator finds a way to forgive, to leave the space and keep the time and take it all in stride. The track, 5 years old, has a timeless quality that allows you to howl in a shared sense of healing agony, a sound of hope that happiness will prosper.

Olivia Rodrigo releases: Bad Idea Right?

21st Aug 2023 — Leave a comment

You promised yourself you wouldn’t see them again…

Olivia Rodrigo 2023

We all have those silly stories we recall with both a sense of shame and glee, reliving those rash decisions we made for the plotline, covering our reddening faces as our friends re-enact some embarrassing stunt we pulled off last Saturday night.Olivia Rodrigo’s second single from her upcoming album Guts Bad Idea Right’ explores the narrative, offering a comedic take on a familiar conundrum.

We eavesdrop on the narrator’s internal monologue as she navigates the intertwining halls of temptation and humiliation, pride and shame. We all know where she’s going to go, as she ‘unintentionally’ gets lost down the rabbit hole of lust, desire and regret, all sympathetically rolling our eyes when she lies unconvincingly pleading that she simply ‘tripped and fell into his bed’.

Olivia Rodrigo music video for Bad Idea Right?

Bad Idea Right is like reading the girls group chat on a messy night out. Your friends are convincing you that you’re ex is awful, that you’re worth more but you’ve had a wine,a woo woo and a vodka shot or two and it’s only a text, it’s only a taxi it’s only a stumble to his bed, besides you’re just doing what sober you is too proud to do. You’ve been there before so what’s once more?

This internal battle whether to keep your head held high, after all you know your friends are right, or to give in to temptation, you wan them back but it’s not even really like that it’s just a filler, someone to do whilst you wait for true love, being in that bed is as simple as shoulder shrug.Rodrigo is infectious, voicing all the times we’ve given in, falling asleep in the right bed to waking up in the wrong one, the realisation of what we’ve done.

Olivia Rodrigo from the music video for Bad Idea Right?

Her debut album Sour explored heartbreak, self worth and identiy whilst her new album, Guts set for release September 8th, seems to be about rebelliousness, self exploration and hedonism in the face of adversity. Self destructive tendencies have the propensity to come disguised as empowerment, especially after a drink, or in a moment of darkness they come heralding a candlelight of serenity that soon turns out to be a burning beacon, setting yourself on fire.

You have a word with yourself in the bathroom mirror of a house party, you laugh as you see their name flash upon your phone, an echo of old times, memories of strawberry ice cream and Billy Joel, but that’s all it is a figure of what once was they can only wave at you, you can never wave back, you can never go back, you can return to their arms, to their sheets but they will be different, as are you, so if you do stumble back there don’t think you’ll be staying.

Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo

Nostalgic yet refreshing, this song is evocative of naughties pop, musical remnants of Lindsay Lohan’s Drama Queen with a bite of Avril Lavigne’s attitude, Rodrigo has created a sound that is cheeky and blameless, mischievously shameless, perhaps not the ear worm that Drivers License and Good 4 You still are but an insight into a new era this perceptive, singer songwriter star is entering.

Please drink responsibly and legally.