It may be winter but there will be daffodils soon…
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”.
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?
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
Evolve Music 