South England Music Feature: Scene for the Obscene

As 2021 edges toward a close, it’s been a fantastic year for a relatively new scene originating from South England, with plenty of albums to warm your lockdown. There are clear inspirations from post rock, jazz, prog rock, and electronica, to name a few.

The songs coming out of this scene are like if Tropical Fuck Storm had a baby with Talking Heads. These bands generally feature a more oblique sound, featuring asymmetric, jagged sounding riffs with a wider instrumentation, intertwining intense, chaotic passages with laid back, melancholic sections. These bands thrive off of using a wide array of instruments to fuel their experimentation, from horns to synthesisers, introducing the ability to put forward different sounds and textures from track to track.

So, here’s a few bands that have released some of the most compelling albums of 2021.

Black Midi

The quartet released their explosive debut, Schlagenheim in June 2019 on Rough Trade records. The album explored their dystopian landscape with chaotic noise rock, jazzy, angular riffs and a frantic drum track.

They followed up this year with Cavalcade, an album that is nothing short of an epic. It shows a considerable evolution from Schlagenheim, moving away from improvisational jams, to more carefully composed, considered songs. With the addition of a sax, horn section, and a dedicated keyboard player, the band was able to further diversify their portfolio of textures. They manage to make this album sound regal, heavy and nostalgic as we move through the tracks while dealing with themes of self-doubt, denial, and religion.

The new instrumentation works perfectly to add to the recurring theme of royalty but the chugging, sludgy guitars are still present, in songs like John L, which have an even deeper impact when juxtaposed with sparser, melancholic songs like Diamond Stuff.

My favourite track would have to be Hogwash and Balderdash, the metal-esque sections intertwined with the bumbling guitar riffs and accented by the Looney Tunes resembling orchestral hits is an evolving auditory roller coaster like you’ve never heard.

Squid

This quintet from Brighton, displays a wide array of instrumentation, but they use guitars as a staple. They feature isometric riffs with odd time signatures and rhythms. They released their debut, Bright Green Field in May 2021.

On one end of the spectrum they have thumping krautrock songs, with repeating chants, screaming vocals, crashing drums and distorted guitars, on the other end, they have songs that are evocative of a Boards of Canada ambient track, with gentle horns, samples, drum machines and beautiful synthesisers.

Squid excels in between these two extremes, songs like Boy Racer and Narrator find a happy medium between their driving rock sounds and hauntingly beautiful soundscapes. The lyrical content of the album is reminiscent of an OK Computer-Radiohead era, with the bands social commentary distilled through the lens of a dystopian world the band walks us through.

Black Country, New Road

This septet follows the themes from the previous two bands: huge array of instrumentation, featuring a violinist, a saxophonist, and a keyboardist but with guitars at the heart.

Their debut, For the First Time is a witty, high energy introduction to the band from February. The first song Instrumental, is a hypnotic, instrumental opener that highlight the band’s ability to take a relatively simple idea allow it to evolve. The band is also partial to a loud/quiet dynamic, matching each manic, loud sections with slower, droning sections.

The band particularly excels in its lyricism with irony and humour rife throughout the album. It touches on anxiety, first love and over-analysing of lyrics.

My favourite song is far and away Sunglasses, an almost 10 minute epic in which the narrator makes a fool out of themselves, redeeming themselves after finding confidence behind a pair of sunglasses, something I’m sure we can all relate to.

Others & beyond

There are plenty of other bands I’d love to discuss but I’m already rambling on. I recommend checking out bands like Goat Girl, Shame, Dry Cleaning and Wet Leg, all of which have made releases in 2021. These bands highlight different areas of this sound in their own way: Shame shows off a large punk influence, while Wet Leg have catchy, almost poppy tunes. Considering such a successful 2021, and with two albums already confirmed for 2022, I’ll be keen to see if this scene keep up their prolific streak.