The best electronic music set in Leeds this year: Caribou + Ela Minus dazzle at Leeds O2 Academy

Francesca Lynes on 15 March 2025

It’s a Sunday night in February and I walk down, alone, to Leeds O2 Academy. Content in my headphones, I am reminded of the last time I queued outside this venue. It was freshers week, only a few months ago, though it feels like a year. It was the first Indie Thursday of the term; I remember the half-excited, entirely-awkward crowd of newbie students. As I look at those around me now to see who has replaced the noise, sweat and slightly manic excitement of freshers, I spot a 6ft+ man in a leather trench, leather cap and steel-toed cowboy boots queued next to two women in Princess Polly attire. Parents with younger kids wait alongside couples, students, and individuals like me – the broad appeal of Caribou’s uplifting electronic sound evident from beyond the vacant stage. This is my first time going to a gig by myself and I feel a certain nostalgia for my first days living in Leeds, the Caribou classic ‘Home’ playing from my phone, now a poignant soundtrack to this milestone of my newfound independence. 

As I wait by the barriers, cold starts to work its way through my Leeds layers, trepidation simultaneously building at the prospect of entering the cramped setting of Projekt. I begin to wonder what I should expect – a loud gig with one man on stage pressing some buttons on concealed DJ decks, with all the charisma of London posers mixing in Hyde Park? As if to dispel my doubts, an apparition appears. It is Dan Snaith picking up his Deliveroo dinner from beside the back door to the venue. An ordinary man, inconspicuous in a t-shirt and plain trousers, understandably goes unnoticed by those around me, though as he disappeared back into the venue, I felt a buzz at the thought of his imminent transformation. Like Clark Kent into Superman, I was now eagerly anticipating leaving the familiarity of the puddled Leeds streets to be taken into Caribou’s world of light, colour and bass-driven good times. I was not to be disappointed. 

Support act: Ela Minus 

Ela Minus is a Colombian multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer taking the techno world into her own hands. With a Björk-like air and the confidence of a musician settled into their artistry, this exciting performer positions herself in front of the DJ controller and promptly takes ownership of the stage. Buttons and dials are in full view of the audience; Minus herself is facing away. What follows is a masterclass in natural performance. At one point, I become convinced that Minus has forgotten about the crowd whilst she skip-dances across stage, sings with ease, keeps the pace and excitement with the electronic elements whilst making everyone feel included. A real show, yes, but one that encouraged attention as well as participation. The audience moved to every beat; there was a sense of a falling in love: for her music, her dance but also EDM as a whole. Minus’ presence and intense use of bass turns a Caribou crowd into eager, raving Minus fans. Her track ‘Broken’ from new album DÍA (2025), has been described by Pitchfork as “a cry for help that swells into a soul-purifying baptism-by-rave”. When the track rang out, the hair-vibrating levels of bass surpassed any previous gig volumes in my experience, pulling us into the intensity of healing by dance. It felt like an invitation to something special and, whether we purified our souls or not, we accepted it readily.

Caribou 

Building on the energy that Ela Minus had created, Caribou transfixes the audience. The levels of light, colour and volume start lower and gradually build up, creating an all-consuming set that uplifts and surprises. 

In the opening segment of the gig, Caribou keeps the stage in black and white as the band plays a few tracks from the lesser-known depths of his discography until a final crescendo and drop into the crowd-pleasing ‘Odessa’ when the venue was plunged into red lights and geometric patterns were projected behind the band. A striking start encourages consistent dancing from those around me, and I genuinely feel myself smiling at the stage as I eagerly await what’s to come. Caribou’s live performance consists of Snaith and his bandmates, Ryan Smith (guitar, keyboards), John Schmersal (bass, keyboards) and Brad Weber (drums). For some tracks, Dan and Brad face each other, both playing drumkits with a musicality that brings an electrifying definition to the drum solo. The energy of the three of them on stage takes over: everyone around me, including those I see when I crane my head to check out the balcony above, are on their feet dancing. At one point the sounds produce the sensation of being inside a siren (in an exciting, sonic-absorption kind of way); at most other points, the music simply encourages uninhibited dance. Caribou were smiling throughout, Snaith using the few breaks between pieces of the free-flowing setlist to look out at the crowd, expressing a gratitude that felt genuine. The pace is kept up for the whole evening, more intense EDM shifting seamlessly into classics such as ‘Sun’ and ‘Never Come Back’. It was fun and loud, at times soulful and always, consistently, joyous. The noise, bass, and dazzling beams made me consider at one point that I may leave O2 that night with reduced vision and hearing, a price that, in the infectious fun of Caribou’s set, seemed a reasonable one to pay. The musical highlight, however, has to be the 2,300 people (plus the 3 band members) singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the drummer, Brad. Electronic and dance music contributed an estimated £2.4 billion to the UK economy last year. Nevertheless, it is a genre, scene and entire community that is constantly being neglected – take the closure of Leeds’ very own Old Red Bus Station as a microcosm for this wider issue. My ticket for Caribou had a face value of £49.50 so it is understandable why there was a lack of students in the crowd. However, there are ways to support the local garage and electronic scene here in Leeds. Get yourself to Caribou or Ela Minus’ tour if you can, look out for smaller-cost clubnights such as Cosmic Slop (which Caribou has DJ’d at for free), or events at smaller venues. As Caribou has said about his own work, EDM “makes people happy”. Indeed, when I later listened to his 2025 album Honey back at my flat, I found myself dancing on my own in the shared kitchen, inevitably being caught twirling around while eating buttered toast. My recommendation for 2025? Go to the loudest gig of an artist you love, but go alone.

Written by Francesca Lynes

A Band that’s Big in the Suburbs: Interview with art-pop band Welly

Eszter Vida on 15 March 2025

Do you remember your Year 6 school disco? It’s too early to leave, so stay with me, dear Reader. The dance floor rammed with your classmates, the memories of your hometown looking too much like a world out of a Where’s Wally puzzle, the endless queue of kids outside the corner shop fiending for Lucozade and that one unbranded 50p chocolate bar 10 minutes before the school bell goes. All of these small life dramas are taken for granted when bands consider writing music about where they are from and what life experience they have to bring forth in whatever repackaged version of grungy post-punk they have bleed their fingers over. What even is the term ‘gentrified pop’? Pop surely can’t be gentrified anymore than it already is, you may say to yourself, draped in an Idles or Black Country New Road tee (ironic), IPA in hand and permanently frowning over your lack of Hinge matches. I get it; a subculture of Leeds students may not at all be phased with joy as a primary emotion in music about the world outside, without feeling guilty.

Allow me to introduce you to Welly, pop’s answer to social commentary about the latest drama in your local village Facebook group. If you were getting bored of listening to whiny love songs and wished that somebody would just write a song about the bins not being collected, this band from the suburbs might just be the answer to your boredom. With their debut album Big in the Suburbs dropping on March 21st, this band has come in hot with live sets incorporating magic shows, shoe stealing and cowbells? But on a wildly windy Friday afternoon, I dodge the comically scary obstacle course that temporarily erupted in Woodhouse Moor to hunch over my laptop and chat on Zoom with frontman Elliot.

On the surface, there’s so much of British culture oozing out of their music that it’s quite easy to compare Welly to Britpop pioneers Pulp or even Blur. “I was hearing people singing about the supermarket and common people. It’s not so much that I am inspired by Britpop, it’s that I am inspired by the sort of ‘cottage industry’, the sort of hobbyist element of British life. I can speak quite candidly about school discos, playing knock n’ run – that’s where it comes from.” Inspiration for building the world of Welly is very visual and all in his surroundings. “The suburbs to me are as much of a muse to me, as a lover would be a painter or daffodils were to Wordsworth. I find a dead end street with pretty little gardens and really nosy neighbours.”

Take their music video for album opener ‘Big in the Suburbs’ as an example for how CBBC unknowingly defined a generation, idolising the Dick and Dom’s and Horrid Henry brats in the room. “I always liked how Madness do their music videos. In ‘House of Fun’, one of them is a clown, one of them is a jester, and a barber. Whatever the song is, they always play the roles of the characters in the song.” 

Self-produced by the band, the perfectionism of releasing a debut album is one that most bands have to succumb to. “The album is really homemade. We made it a year ago now, all by ourselves at my dad’s house. Now that’s finished and I keep thinking of what I could have done differently, I compensate with the visuals. The day we were mixing the album, we were saying ‘we could have done this, we could have done this’. I’d rather just get stuff out or else it would never go anywhere.” But a debut project is meant to be raw. It’s a band at their most authentic. “We’re very proud of it, and it’s what a debut album should sound like.”

There’s an ever evolving image of what a debut album is supposed to be and whether it aligns with a band’s message. Narratively, this debut album is very centered on a caricature Southern suburb, zooming in on all the gossip and happenings of everyday people. I ask if there is already a sequel written for the saga. “Album 2 was written before we even signed the record deal, we’re just not sure on what it will sound like yet. I want to focus more on fast food, junk food and instant gratification culture. The 3rd album will be the prog rock Genesis project that no one really wants to listen to.” Soon, there’ll be a cosmopolitan city of sound made up of the band’s sound, whether that’s them hoping to pursue hyperpop or even a baroque project. “It’s about throwing stuff at the wall and I was lucky that the first thing I threw at the wall stuck, which is what Welly is.”

For now, the album opens with its titular track ‘Big in the Suburbs’, opening up the world of Welly with a formal introduction of ‘Welcome to the brand new great British zoo’. I got some further insight on the rest of the tracks. “‘Home for the Weekend’ was the first song that started the project. I never really felt homesick but I was always really gagging to leave home, which for me is a suburbia outside of Southampton. When I moved to Brighton for university, I suddenly went ‘oh I quite miss it’. Bizarrely, I had a seizure and spent hours in Brighton A&E and that’s when I came up with ‘Big in the Suburbs.’ ‘Knock and Run’ is a rip off of the macarena if you listen close enough. There’s also sadder slower songs and it isn’t just all a big joke. Hopefully, if you have already written Welly off, there might be something there to surprise you.” 

Hopefully, none of you have yet. You could argue there’s a strong self-awareness to the music, and most of today’s guitar music expresses a deep need for social commentary on the state of the world, but in a more pessimistic and often overdone way. The difference with Welly is the amount of fun and comedy they exude on stage, and they succeed in striking a balance between wit and sincerity when making music sound really British. “It’s far more pessimistic and less arty than it used to be in the 80s. It feels like the music now is shouting at me. Yeah, but could you embellish it?”

Formed in Brighton, there were many grassroots venues that they owe their start to and continue to praise. “Places like The Green Door Store, The Prince Albert and Hope and Ruin, all that lot. Heartbreakers and The Joiners (Southampton) too.” The scene seems to have become a tight-knit community where their DIY project flourished way more than it could in a glorified London. “I don’t think Welly would have got off the ground in London, but in Brighton, it’s not like we could bring our friends to shows because we didn’t know anybody when we moved here. We sort of had to put on our shows and play gobby to get people’s attention, which is how we made those friends through gigs. It’s a very accommodating place and I think they’re up for something kind of odd.”

There’s so much about not being a London centric band anymore. Playing in London is impossible. Welly’s recently announced seaside tour or previous North/South tours showcase their passion to play in small, dingy venues that reach the smaller, more neglected pockets of the music industry around the country. 

“You’re way better off trying to be the biggest band in Leeds than be bottom of the bill in London. We are playing to all of our friends, we played in Nottingham with 5 other bands and they were all having so much more fun than any prick in Hoxton. If you go to Falmouth, they have such a great scene there and what’s great for a touring band like ours is that their biggest band will support. Same thing in Huddersfield, Shrewsbury, Swansea. We get to meet their community. There’s 5 bands, they’ve all got the same drummer, they’re all having so much more fun than working in a coffee shop 9-5 just to play once a year at The George Tavern. Move out, have fun somewhere else. Brighton, if anything, is one of the bigger and harder ones.”

And with that, a toast to our beloved local music scenes. It’s Welly’s reimagined world of what would happen if Horrid Henry grew up with his band, and we’re all living in it.

Written by Eszter Vida

Gallery: The Rabbitts grace the stage at HPBC

Jade Pharoah on 7 March 2025

Last month The Rabbitts, a Norwich-based folk band, gave an ethereal performance at Hyde Park Book Club. The cosy snug was full as the genre-blending band performed songs from their most recent EP Salthouse (2024).

Words and Images by Jade Pharoah

Image Credits: Jade Pharoah

Gallery: Adwaith Live at HPBC

Jade Pharoah on 4 March 2025

Adwaith, a post-punk rock band from Wales, recently kicked off the UK leg of their tour to mark the release of their new album Solas (2025). Last month, they performed at Leeds’ Hyde Park Book Club, selling out their first headline show in the city. The basement was buzzing from wall to wall and filled with a lively atmosphere. My personal favourite was ‘Coeden Anniben’, a song they described as the “rock version of Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road”.

The band consists of Hollie Singer (vocals, guitar), Gwenllian Anthony (bass, keys, mandolin) and Heledd Owen (drums).

Words and Photos by Jade Pharoah

Image Credits: Jade Pharoah

‘Photography is Dead’: In Conversation with Lewis Evans

Arabella Wright on 1 March 2025

The evolving media landscape demands constant originality. Expertise in a growing range of mediums and, ultimately, the resilience to navigate increasingly competitive and commercialised spaces is essential to succeed in any creative space. Lewis Evans, a photographer, videographer and creative director now based in Chicago, has travelled the world with the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Greta Van Fleet and Blossoms. Now living his life in parallel to some of the world’s most idolised musicians, he has learned to seamlessly capture raw and fleeting moments whilst navigating life on the road. Before setting off on his latest tour with Inhaler, Lewis discusses his journey into music photography and how he hopes to use his privilege to help other creatives get their foot in the door of the music industry. 

“It’s so funny now because I’ve probably not used my degree in six years”. Before studying journalism at the University of Sheffield, Evans had never touched a camera but used his keen interest in music to write reviews and articles for local blogs and publications. However, like many others before him found, the written medium, especially at a local level, is heavily saturated with writers, leading to very little reward. “I’m such an impatient person,” he commented. “I’d find myself doing these music reviews, and you’d spend hours doing it, and then it would just exist for a second and then vanish. I was just thinking, how much time can you actually give to this before you burn out?”. 

After being inspired by the other people on his course, Lewis blew the rest of his loan on “a shit camera” and began to photograph the local music scene. “I really enjoyed seeing the fast payoff in terms of taking photos at shows and what you then got out of it compared to writing”. Following graduation, Evans moved into a marketing job and continued to build his portfolio through working with smaller bands, yet his break came in the form of photographing the English indie rock band Blossoms. After shooting the first three songs for a local publication, the standard for any press photographer at gigs in the UK, Lewis posted the images online and presumed that was it. “Later that day, Tom, Blossoms’ front man, reached out on Twitter and was like, ‘Oh, do you mind if we use some of the photos?’. I was like, ‘Of course!’. Then the next day, I got an email at 5 pm from the manager saying the guys really liked the photos. Is there any chance you can get to Nottingham to do a show tonight?” And he was in. 

After finishing the UK tour with Blossoms in December 2018, shooting venues such as Brixton Academy, there was a quiet period for photography work before the festival season began. “Blossoms had a few summer festivals, and I’d never really done any festivals and stuff, and they were like, ‘Do you want to come to Spain with us?’ We did the show, and it was amazing. It was one of those sunset slots where the sky was purple and orange. Everything was just way too nice,” he explained. “I just had this moment, and I was like, this is what I want to do, and I just need to make it happen.”

The following week, Lewis submitted his notice to his marketing role. “I left, and I was like, fuck, I’m going to have to try and make rent,” he admitted. “Later that week, Blossoms’ manager called me up, and he was like, ‘Hey, we’ve just taken on this new band. Would you be interested in going on tour with them?’. He was like, ‘The money is shit, it’s tiny venues but I think they might do alright,’. That band was Inhaler. Then they just fucking exploded.”

Image Credit: Lewis Evans, via Chuff Media

Since 2019, with the exception of the dreaded Covid years that no one likes to talk about, Lewis has travelled from Japan to Mexico, all across the States and back again. Working directly with artists, labels, and creative directors alike, he has found ways to remain creative within the everyday chaos. “I personally enjoy working directly with the artist because you get unfiltered access to what they want. A lot of the time, if you’re doing stuff directly with labels, it can be sort of more what they’re wanting rather than what the artist wants,” he commented when asked about his style of collaborating with different people. “I’m really careful with offers, and I’ll work with people that I really want to work with. Either I like the music, or they’re just nice people. At the end of the day, when you spend so much time with people, it’s just not enough to spend that with people that just aren’t nice.”

Tending to adopt both an observational and interactive style with his subjects dependent on setting and genre, his photographic style has been developed and honed through years of practice. “If it’s a press shoot, I’ll tend to do a load of pre-production beforehand, kind of put in loads of references, both stylistically and compositionally. But then for tour stuff, a lot of it that I really like doing is just being opportunistic,” he observes. “I’m so glad that I have never had any training or any education in photography because so much of it has come from trial and error, and I feel like you can stylistically run into things by making happy mistakes that then you kind of adopt as your own. If everybody followed the technical aspects of photography by the book, then everybody’s shit would just look the same.”

This originally is what landed Lewis some of the most sought-after projects in the industry, including photographing the Arctic Monkeys on their 2023 UK Stadium Tour after Inhaler supported the band across Europe earlier that spring. However, when you’re involved in something so big, it can be hard to stay present and enjoy the experience. “Sometimes, now you can just get so preoccupied with getting through it and getting it done that you don’t take in those moments,” he reflects. “I do try now, even if it’s for a minute or so, just to sort of take my earplugs out and just watch because you don’t want those moments to kind of bypass you. When I think back to why I got into it, it was just purely because I loved it so much. You don’t want to lose that.”

Every creative has battled with burnout during their career. Working with artists on a long-term basis on worldwide tours offers its own unique challenges. Each show needs its original content, as whilst the venues and audiences change, much of the show stays the same. “It can get so hard to try and change things or mix things up. I’ll set myself challenges, so sometimes I’m only going to have this lens on for this gig, or certain shows I’ll only let myself shoot from the crowd, because I think it’s as important for the band as it is for you that the work is varied because they don’t want to see the same shit every night, or they get bored. I think there’s definitely a really desirable skill in trying to constantly reinvent what you’re doing, because it’s both very creatively rewarding, but then it just stands you in good stead for work.”

Having skills across multiple mediums is now prevalent for longer tours. “One of Inhaler’s managers, who I get on really well with, came into the dressing room one day, and he looked at me. He was like, ‘Photography is dead, you’re a filmmaker now.’” Since then, Lewis has gone on to work on huge video projects, including directing live videos alongside Joshua Halling for Catfish And The Bottlemen at their comeback shows last summer. “Sometimes you just need a kick to do stuff, because that’s one of the best things that’s ever happened, because I’ve got so much work from doing video. If you can do both, it makes you so much more desirable for tours, even if you can only do it like moderately well, it’s better to have that than nothing at all.”

Image Credits: Lewis Evans, via @lewsvans on Instagram

Established in 2022, The Name Game is an organisation that helps female, nonbinary and trans people navigate the music industry, aiming to level the playing field for creative careers. Founded by Daisy Carberry, a Senior Marketing Manager at Atlantic Records, she has created an open online community that is free for all, where industry knowledge isn’t gate-kept and opportunities are shared, ranging from shadowing professionals on video shoots or photographing global artists on tours. In early 2023, Lewis collaborated with The Name Game, providing opportunities for creatives from underrepresented backgrounds to photograph Inhaler’s Cuts and Bruises Tour to help build portfolios and gain professional work experience. “I’d had this idea for ages that I wanted to do something. I’d kind of thought about doing it off my own back, but then I was like the whole point of doing it is to get attention and focus for something that isn’t about you.” 

“The music photography world is still just so male-saturated, and I feel it can be such an uncomfortable environment, and some people can be so dismissive,” he reflects. “I feel like I just still see so much negative, patronising behaviour towards people, especially women or trans people or non-binary people or people of colour. And obviously, as someone that experiences a lot of privilege from both my background and the position I’m in now, it seemed like a good opportunity to kind of do something with it.”

“I actually hit up like a couple of people about trying to do it with them, and there was just, like, no effort to do it. And I was like, I feel like this is quite a good idea. Why would you not want to do this?” After meeting Daisy through Pale Waves when he photographed a few shows for the band, Lewis reached out when she launched The Name Game. “I was like, ‘Would you be interested in doing this with me?’ And she was like ‘100%,’ and it was amazing. We worked together to set everything up, and it was fucking amazing. It was so much fun. There were hundreds and hundreds of people that applied. It was so enjoyable going through everybody’s applications, seeing the breadth of work that was there, and the ability from so many different people, from so many different walks of life, and it went so well.”

While the response to the opportunity was overwhelmingly positive, some social media users had taken to the comment sections to let out their grievances that the chance to photograph these shows wasn’t directed towards them. “The reaction was kind of what I expected it to be. There were so many guys who were commenting on the post, being like ‘this is discriminating against men.’” Whilst some didn’t see the importance of the opportunity, many people in the industry did. The Name Game as an organisation has flourished in the past few years, with Name Game Nights acting as Q&A sessions and networking events for people to meet and engage with industry professionals, giving valuable advice and experiences that are generally inaccessible. “The whole thing that I wanted to get out of it was raising awareness of what Daisy was trying to do,” Lewis reflects. “It was so cool to side and work with someone who was trying to do such good things, and I just really hope that my friends who I work with, and peers of mine, will pick up on this.”

So while breaking into the industry is no easy feat, the support put out by organisations like The Name Game try to make it more accessible for those who have the drive and persistence to work through. When asked about advice for people wanting to get started, Lewis said, “It’s so simple, but the best advice is take more photos. The only way you’re going to get better at something is just by doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it again. Practice is always going to help, and small shows are so informative because if you can work with basically next to no light, or, like, the worst condition possible, you’re going to find it easier with anything else in the future.”

“I think photography is similar to music in a sense. I don’t think there’s a golden ticket, but there’s definitely something to be said for just going and going and going and going.” “I feel you create your own luck by putting yourself in positions and situations where something can arise,” he explains. “But it’s fucking hard, it’s really, really hard”. 

And it is. There’s rarely been a story of any creative having a straightforward journey into their career of choice. It is a testament to hard work, an awful lot of patience and an innate drive to succeed. But it can be done. Whilst there is no set path to success, Lewis has shown that for those willing to keep pushing and trying, the rewards, both creatively, professionally, and personally, can be immeasurable. 

To keep up with his recent work on tour, Lewis can be found at @lewsvans on Instagram.  

Words by Arabella Wright

Independent Venue Week: won’t you take me to Regtown ’25?

Eszter Vida on 27 February 2025

It was born out of the blessed poetry of Lipps Inc. Had they known when they wrote ‘Funkytown’ back in 1970, that they actually proposed a culturally, spiritually, enlightened definitive question in their pulsating chorus: ‘oh won’t you take me to Regtown 2025?’ Little did they know of their influence on independent Leeds based record label Private Regcords, taking on their grandest gesture yet and booking out the entirety of Hyde Park Book Club to celebrate DIY small festivals and local talent galore.

Mr James Vardy, CEO of Private Regcords, and the puppeteer behind the 15 acts on his lineup proposed such a musical coup on the beloved student hotspot this past Independent Venue Week, in effort to celebrate a variation of local experimental, indie, art-pop, jazz and everything in between. This special day of collaboration could not have been met with a more sanctimonious response, selling out on general admission tickets and flogging T-shirts like evangelical pedlars in the freezing cold to raise funds for an awesome night. These days not many startup festivals can financially upkeep themselves, and the struggle to meet the nail biting margin for a necessary profit to continue consumes most creative projects with inaccessibility, bankruptcy and the fearful reminder of the state live music is in. So the fact that we have events like this means that our community has struck gold on its legacy for culture. 

It’s within these third spaces that musicians are not only playing to one another, but praising each other’s work in recognition of being equals on a lineup, curated by people who love local music. And not only did they party until Leeds’ City Councils temporary 2am curfew extension – oh no. If you want to get involved and continue spreading the message of DIY events, head on down every Sunday at 10am to the new Hangover Sessions in the Snug Room of Hyde Park Book Club, where the record label hosts stripped back performances as cures for your post-Saturday shenanigans. I know it cured my post-Regtown festival blues.

Written by Eszter Vida

Adult DVD. Sold Out. In The Round.

Freddie Waterland on 24 February 2025

Adult DVD. Sold out. 1am start time. In the round.  

Adult DVD’s hometown gig at the Belgrave Music Hall was as chaotically energetic as anyone who is even vaguely familiar with their music could expect. ‘Yacht Money’ and ‘Hot Set’ provided the ideal start, an unapologetic blend of punchy vocals from lead singer Harry Hanson, strong riffs and as much influence from the synths as could be imagined with no less than four on stage, encapsulating in microcosm the band’s distinctive sound. Often made comparisons to LCD Soundsystem are not without merit, but only by listening to their classification defying acid/electronic/dance rock can one begin to grasp what Adult DVD are about. 

Simply put, the ‘in the round’ aspect of the gig – where the band stood in a circle essentially amongst the crowd, in an intimate ‘boiler room’ style – worked brilliantly. Perhaps the main beneficiary (apart from the crowd) was drummer Jonathan Newell; no longer relegated to the back of the stage behind a wall of equipment, the pulse Newell provided not only provided the perfect complement to the synths but deservedly took the spotlight at times.

‘7 foot 1’ and ‘Dogs In the Sun’ were both well crafted and compiled without losing the jazzy electricity that makes the band unique. They provided the perfect build up to the highlight of the night, ‘Do something’. A cacophonous soundscape as full of relentless dynamism as the rest of their music, ‘Do something’ retains lyrical sardonicism whilst being undeniably catchy. This combines to give a sense of forward motion – surely emblematic of the band’s trajectory in the coming years.

The remainder of the set basked in the playful peculiarity of the moment. It is not every day at 2AM you are stood, essentially engulfed by a dance/rock band, above an (albeit excellent) canteen in Leeds’s Northern Quarter, but as the industrious ‘Sadman Mancave’ faded into the joyfully crazy ‘Bill Murray’, it became apparent it’s something that should happen more often. 

Written by Freddie Waterland

Inhaler: Open Wide – the new era of Inhaler is here 

Daniel Brown on 19 February 2025

Inhaler; we know the score by now. Commanders of the nepo-baby debate in music, generals of the vibrant Dublin music scene, loyal servants to that glamorous indie rock and roll. A frontman who’s the son to a king of rock, imaginary boyfriend to a million fangirls. But is that where the story ends?  Following their first two full releases, the pandemic plagued It Won’t Always Be Like This (2021) and sophomore outing Cuts and Bruises (2023), the Irish four-piece have released their latest project Open Wide (2025), a passion driven exploration into love, authenticity and what the creation of music means to them. 

With two albums under their belts, Inhaler could seem set in their groove. Pick a country and they could sell out a show there, pick a song and they can play it to a rowdy and rambunctious crowd that will sing it back to them, ask them to pick a lane and a problem arises. For an artist finding ‘their sound’ is no mean feat, but one would argue that being defined by a sound and being able to subvert that in an appealing, necessary and logical way is a much meaner one (see the parting of Arctic Monkeys fans like the red sea following the conceptual Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino (2018)). Nevertheless, Inhaler have taken a deep breath (too on the nose?) and strove for this album to represent their genuine selves, even if that means outgrowing their indie-rock roots. It’s evident the group have shed their skin with this album and embraced the pop elements that encapsulate so many of their greater qualities – the infectious melodies, the catchy hook, the screamable chorus, and to call a spade a spade – this is a pop-rock album. Gone is the very loosely tied label of indie (I mean how independent can you be when signed to Polydor records), with Inhaler striving to break free from any chains being recognised as an “indie band” might thrust upon them. 

The album opens with ‘Eddie in the Darkness’- who Eddie is and what he is doing in the darkness is still unclear, but at the very least he mimics the slew of Inhaler fans entering this album in the dark. Following a series of single releases – none of which the same, all of which noticeable deviations from the band’s pre-established formula, fans were left to wonder what had become of the Irish rockers. Whilst the album is a stark departure from the quartet’s first album outing It Won’t Always Be Like This (2021), ‘Eddie in the Darkness’ eases listeners into the change, still containing notes of the Inhaler fans fell in love with a glam-rock twist, gearing them up for what is to come and as such it becomes the crux of this new era. 

If Inhaler has always known how to do one thing, it’s how to etch a catchy tune onto the grooves of your brain that infects every subsequent thought and shower concert you have (if my housemates are reading this, I can only apologise). ‘Billy (Yeah Yeah Yeah)’ and ‘A Question of You’ in particular wrap strings around your arms and legs with their shimmering guitar riffs and punchy drumbeats, puppeteering you into a bop regardless of your setting. Similarly, choruses of ‘Concrete’ and ‘Little Things’ could coax out the voice of those most quiet and scale it to the size of a choir. The groove is well and truly alive throughout the album – taking a life of its own, a life perhaps given by collaboration with Kid Harpoon. The British producer of Harry’s House (2022) fame was given the trust of Inhaler and tasked with translating their lofty pop dreams of authenticity and groove into a tight 13 track album. His influence is palpable, with several songs coming straight from his catalogue of synth-pop mega-tunes designed for the biggest stages. 

Elijah Hewson really pushes his vocal performance, squeezing every drop out of his vast vocal range, less so in the classic sense of pushing his upper limit – but instead displaying a lower timber which compliments the building verses on many a track. Drummer Ryan McMahon gives a rhythmic and tight performance which bassist Robert Keating builds upon with his bold and striking basslines. Ultimately though Josh Jenkinson, lead guitarist of the band, is the absolute standout. His lead sections ebb and flow – calling out to the listeners at exactly the right moments without overpowering the symbiosis of the final product. He is a true chameleon, dancing between genres and sifting through rhythms; with country-infused riffs on songs like ‘X-Ray’ and much funkier melodies on tracks like ‘A Question Of You’. 

This album, beyond its sonic characteristics can be defined by love- a word synonymous with Inhaler some might say. Their first ever single, ‘I Want You’, an obvious tale of youthful love, my personal favourite track of theirs, ‘Love Will Get You There’, an homage to the importance of intimacy, and their fans, well loving would be a bloody understatement (Pre-gig queueing is scheduled to be added to the next Olympics as an endurance event thanks to their questionably motivated efforts). The band’s latest outing is no different with love being the key tenant of most songs. The lyrical direction of the album has devotion and adoration brimming at the surface and there’s an easy thread of passion to follow throughout the project, giving listeners an immediate and heartfelt connection to the songs. ‘Your House’ and ‘The Charms’ in particular capture this passion in their lyrics- calling out to many a hopeless romantic who may be hearing this album in (a potentially) bleak mid-February. 

Open Wide (2025) depicts Inhaler at the peak of their powers. Gone is that youthful naivety of an accused nepo-baby indie band and in its place – a charismatic and poised pop-rock authenticity that serves as a statement of intent. A statement of intent of a band who have cultivated their sound and are ready to show it off on the biggest stage.  Prying the love of that good ol’ indie music from the tight grips of the wild diehard Inhaler fan is no easy feat, but the Dublin four-piece have dug their claws in and ripped the arms of their legion of admirers open wide, ready to embrace their new era. 

Written by Dan Brown

Kyle Reviews Addison Rae’s New Drop Because We Are Nothing Without Our Stereotypes

Kyle Galloway on 18 February 2025

You know me, Reader. I was lay (boyfriend’s bed, the Cuatro Torres just visible out the window, it’s Valentine’s Day, he’s at work, God it’s so hard), thinking (slightly hungover, freshly cut hair, 3 espressos deep, dodging the cumstain on my pillow) about whether to snatch an arbitrary line from Marx’s Grundrisse or Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet to feign informed sociological analysis of Addison Rae’s new single, ‘High Fashion’, and in doing so fraudulently intellectualise the fact that I froth-at-the-mouth-rabidly support this woman’s current trajectory. I was lay (I am lay) in these sheets, and you may think this introduction promises my resignation from this formula, BUT IT DOES NOT. Self-awareness does not necessitate moral puritanism, Reader. I am nothing if not a proselyte. And I might add: if any number of novels can establish status via epigraph, then so shall I. Without further ado…. Ben Lerner’s 2014 novel (one of my all-time favourites) is preceded by the following epigraph:

“The Hassidim tell a story about the world to come that says everything there will be just as it is here. Just as our room is now, so it will be in the world to come; where our baby sleeps now, there too it will sleep in the other world. And the clothes we wear in this world, those too we will wear there. Everything will be as it is now, just a little different.”

This motif of “everything as it is now, just a little different” is echoed throughout the text, and comes to involve itself with ideas of intertextuality, representation, and authorship. To what point can anyone truly author anything, if the cultural artefact produced results from a centuries-long interpersonal means of production through which you learned the necessary skills and gleaned the necessary inspiration to be moved to make such an artefact? The Hassidic story itself is one Lerner says that he first happened upon in Agamben, but that is usually attributed to Walter Benjamin, who critics note heard it from Gershom Scholem. Maybe the sum of all things in the world-to-come, despite the new meshings of old influences and processes, is, as the story proposes, as it is now. Maybe, if we do not think of the “everything” as “every single thing” and instead visualise it as the holistic “everything of now” versus the “everything of then”, we realise that everything will indeed be as it is now, because the sum of all things will still weigh the same, in grams if not in cultural weight. All we do is reshape, remesh, rewind and press play. 

Stay with me. If we suspend our disbelief, this means that, no, your housemate was not the first housemate to piss himself in Wharf Chambers. No, the Leeds Swimming Society was not the first swimming society to play soggy biscuit. And I’m sorry, I really am, but you and your friends were not the first ones to find that bench on the hill behind Meanwood Valley Farm that overlooks the city. I know someone who shat there. But even if you and your group of friends were the West Yorkshire conquistadors that you imagined, my point is none of it would be really new! The soggy biscuit would simply be the incidental next iteration of thousands of years of rancid biscuit-based tests of character. I am sure that Henry VIII was the sorest loser of soil’d bisquite that 1503 ever saw. 

Circling back, though, you have likely inferred at this point that this is a setup for me to defend Addison Rae against plagiarism allegations. You wouldn’t be far off. “High Fashion”, a whisper-falsetto track that stings against a thick, layered synth instrumentation, definitely recalls “Fetish”-era Selena Gomez (2017) and Ariana Grande’s “Let Me Love You” and “Touch It” (2016). Likewise, Rae’s first and second singles from her upcoming debut pulled generously from pop of the last 20 years, with “Diet Pepsi” (2024) drawing comparison to early Lana Del Rey and “Aquamarine”’s (2024) glittery production pointing to Madonna’s Ray of Light (1998) and American Life (2003). And these are not baseless comparisons; Rae’s existing discography undeniably rehashes pop music as it has been established thus far, almost as an agenda. 

But in truth, I do not find it convincing that this makes her a copycat any more than it makes her a ‘student’ of the culture. The music itself, combined with the concomitant imagery she has released alongside it, betrays (at least to me) a concerted effort to be seen making a concerted effort to be a popstar. Whether it’s the performative, almost histrionic hypersexuality in her music videos; the ill-fitting, dress-up style outfits; the brownnosing of Charli XCX; the bubblegum-blowing on the cover of her debut EP; the OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES (2018) jumper; or the stylish, eyebrowless accessory that she has made of choreographer Lexee Smith, to me this rebrand screams popstar-plays-girl-desparate-to-be-popstar. It is the ouroboros!!! And dare I say it is, for the Aquama-ra-ra bitch, a foolproof ploy.

Medidate on this. A Tiktok darling of the universally-hated “Renegade” epoch, Addison had no doubt seen the vicious reception of ‘serious’ attempts at music by her fellows (colleagues? contemporaries?) and herself (see: “Obsessed” (2021)). She (and her team, I’m sure) would have known that a transition to popstar would be no mean feat, and to circumvent this, the (I’ll say it) genius move was to make her entire brand a satirisation of her own position in the media-sphere. If she were to play the part of a wide-eyed, fame-hungry protegé of Charli and Troye Sivan, both explicitly in the kitsch, frenzy, and referentiality of her music videos and more convincingly in paid-for paparazzi shots and dazed-and-confused red carpet interviews, any negative reception she received for the awkwardness of her reorientation towards music would be suffused into the self-consciously artificial, fawning persona she had marketed. She would set up a relationship with the public in which criticism is negated and instead relegates itself to fluffing up her own polemacy, and those on either cognitive side of those who criticise (those who consume the product without any level of interrogation, and those who enjoy the art of the charade itself) will praise her relentlessly (see: me). 

The proof is in the pudding – the numbers Addison is pulling right now are nothing to be sniffed at. On Spotify, “Aquamarine” sits at 32 million streams, and “Diet Pepsi” at a mammoth 292 million. Beyond this, Rae is fraternising with any number of established popstars (Lorde, Rosalía, etc.) while simultaneously gesturing at relationships with more esoteric figures such as Arca. She’s walking the tightrope well because she has erected neon billboards pointing at the tightrope and just how thin it is. 

As far as I’m concerned, “High Fashion” and it’s (anything but) coke-fuelled visuals has one foot (pun intended) planted in Addison’s hallmark please-don’t-make-me-sing! kitsch and the other firmly in an ambition to innovate, through however many layers of metacommentary. Disjointed, vapid lyrics (“I know I’m drunk, but…”) poorly solder a number of pop clichés together (‘couture’, libido, uppers, exhibitionism). They make the track fodder for off-the-bat criticism à la Artpop (2014), but the poor lyrical execution is juxtaposed against an unexpectedly complex, hazy instrumental which weaves in and out of the vocal performance and, during drops, cracks open into EDM-adjacent texture. The track’s video, too, plays with garish colour, visual allusion, and forced perspective, meshing together images of Addison as a chalk-covered gymnast, Oz’s Dorothy, and a closet fashionista literally playing dress up. It’s frenetic, but it’s notably more thought-out than the lyrics. The work put into the track’s music video and production problematise an assessment of the lyrics that dismisses them as thoughtless or manufactured. 

For if ‘manufactured’ is the intention, what is the logic behind it? Stirring controversy for publicity? Or holding a mirror up to the pop that we’ve been listening to uncritically for the last couple of decades? If Addison, the total newcomer to ‘serious’ art, she who is easiest to critique, decides to gut her lyrics of meaning, does this not reinscribe the words sung with words implied? Words that ask us how deep the lyrics of pop we admit as enjoyable actually are. The song she has produced, whether or not its lyricism is justified by the modalities attached to it, is just as the songs we accept are, but a little different. A little different in source, a little different in frankness regarding influences, a little different in its relationship with sincerity. But by writing a mirror instead of an image itself, this music encourages us to review what we consider good or original art, our acceptance of a world-to-come that does not invent its meaning machines but simply reboots them, and our own media literacy. 

Written by Kyle Galloway