Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Daddy Long Legs
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 10th September
Stereo
18+

DADDY LONG LEGS, New York City’s most diabolical Rhythm & Blues street gang,
release their eagerly anticipated fourth studio album Street Sermons on March 17 on
Yep Roc Records. The album is a testament to triumph over adversity. Written &
recorded in the height of the pandemic against a backdrop of political tension , riots
in the streets and an uncertain future. In dark times DLL shine their light- Street
Sermons is an album of the times, for the times by a band of the people. 
DLL fled the madness of the city to record Street Sermons at Old Soul Studios in
Catskill, NY with Oakley Munson (Black Lips/Nude Party) producing. Cutting 12 killer
tracks , the trio morphed into a quartet with Oakley stepping in on keyboards and
piano. The LP also features guest appearances from John Sebastian (Lovin’
Spoonful) and Wreckless Eric of “Whole Wide World” fame. 
The album kicks off with Street Sermons, a statement of intent. Lead howler & harp
blower Brian Hurd beseeches his troubled urban congregation to “ Work with one
another/ Not against each other”. On this track DLL evolve into a Brooklyn chain
gang that sounds like it’s emanating through the cracks of a hot & sticky Bedford
Avenue.
“Nightmare” was released as a teaser single in late September last year. During the
depths of the pandemic lockdown Brian experienced a terrifying dream and awoke in
a cold sweat. To exorcise the terror he immediately scribbled down his memories of
the dream that then became “Nightmare” – Kinda a horror version of Yesterday!
A scream worthy rocker about dealing with a world gone wrong…. “We’re livin’ a
nightmare and this world is condemned; I’ll see you if this nightmare ever ends”
shouts frontman Brian.
“Harmonica Razor” is a dangerous R & B instrumental throwdown which shows off
Hurds prowess on the harp. It’s easy to see why Hurd has just won a coveted &
justly deserved endorsement from Honer Harmonicas. “Star” proves the band can
cool things down and deliver a country blues ballad of the highest order when the
time calls for it
Over the last decade these fine gentlemen have burned down dance halls the world
over with their explosive fire ceremony and have amassed a cult like following all
their own with an unbeatable reputation for being one of the finest  live acts on the
road today. The boys recently returned from their first tours in Australia and New
Zealand where they unveiled their new killer 4 piece format with Dave Klein on Piano
who joins the original lineup of Hurd, Aktürk & Styles. 
Their previous album Lowdown Ways (Yep Roc 2019) reached number 4 on the
billboard blues charts and received 4 stars from rolling stone magazine who called it
“Chicago blues fired at the moon played by the demented children of the pretty
things” and you we can certainly expect good things to come from Street Sermons. 
Their earlier output heralded two classic albums “Evil Eye On You and “Blood From
A Stone” on the legendary mom & pop label Norton Records founded by NYC record
boss Billy Miller and his wife Miriam Linna who was a founding member of The
Cramps.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
+ Special Guests
Saturday 6th September
The Flying Duck
18+

At the frayed bottom-edge of Indiana – just a moderate bike ride north of Louisville, Kentucky – multi-instrumentalist, artist and songwriter Ryan Davis’ Americana-noir soundwaves have been emanating for years in a myriad of forms. But not until late-2023's rich and glowing double-disc Dancing On The Edge, the debut breakout release as Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, was his creative presence so widely acknowledged by press, fellow contemporaries and fans alike, commonly deeming the record an instant classic of idiosyncratic American songwriting greatness. Spring 2025's UK/Ireland tour gave Ryan and band the platform to affirm speculation with a series of intensely passionate shows –– founder/author of UNCUT Allan Jones citing the band's Kilkenny Roots Festival show as 'intense, amazing, an emotional exorcism with lyrics unfolding like a fever dream'.

May 7 this year saw the announcement of their second album New Threats From The Soul and with it the release of a titular single that was immediately pinned as 'Best New Track' by Pitchfork, Jeremy Larson stating '[the song] feels like a dam break, a flood of sublime, witty, and dryly devastating lyrics that count among some of the best I've heard this decade'. As Ryan's fellow Louisville contemporary Nathan Salsburg muses – the new album reckons mightily with the perplexities of human efficacy and agency in an absurd and debased world. This probably sounds hopelessly plodding and severe. It is not—not remotely. It’s a shit-ton of fun. The songs are all earwigs; the arrangements genuinely thrilling, enlivening efforts by the crackerjacks that comprise the sprawling Roadhouse Band. Each trip through the record reveals more of the depth and breadth and tangle of its tapestry. New Threats From The Soul is a masterclass in reducing the sublime to the prosaic, immensity to infinitesimally, and vice versa [the trick can only work both ways].

With the new full-length slotted for July 25th via Tough Love [UK/EU] and Sophomore Lounge [USA] backed by main stage appearances at UK's End of the Road and Moseley Folk & Arts Festival, more support shows with MJ Lenderman and a staggering 30-something date UK/EU tour this August and September, this dense sharing of Davis' canon is set to further connect a worldwide audience at rapid pace, his lyrical craftsmanship arresting listeners with its playful sincerity and surrealistic view of a broken planet backed by a group of skilled players that are as musically woven into the cloth of the songs as the writer himself is their words.

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band: You will not soon forget this name.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Gulp
+ Special Guests
Friday 5th September
The Glad Cafe
18+

Gulp are Guto Pryce and Lindsey Leven. They are joined by Gid Goundrey
on guitar, Stu Kidd on drums and Chris Geddes on keyboards to enrich a
sound which has been described as a musical manifestation of the road trip;
the landscape and events along the way - from the sun-squinting, flickering
saturation and lens flare of the Californian desert to the gloamin of rural
Welsh and Scottish homescapes. Expect fuzzed-up guitars, dream-pop
vocals, acoustic and electronic drums and synths.
 
Guto is a founding member and bass player in Super Furry Animals.
He’s been seen playing with Sonic Boom’s Spectrum and more
recently Das Koolies and The Pictish Trail. Lindsey creates mixed media
prints that often accompany the music she has created with the band.

Gulp's debut LP Season Sun was released in July 2014 on Sonic Cathedral
(Europe) and Everloving Records (US). Gulp were last spotted on stage in
2017, before releasing their second album All Good Wishes in May 2018.
2025 marks an exciting return for the band, with a new album Beneath
Strawberry Moons due for release in August 2025.
 
"a thing of eyeball popping beauty that deserves to have psychotropic palm
leaves wafted at its feet (and then, ideally, eaten)"
Artrocker 5 stars *****
 
"(Game Love's) spooked demeanour suggests The Wicker Man getting fresh
with Nancy Sinatra. That's Gulp: easy to swallow, hard to forget" Guardian
Guide Pick of the Week

"It's an amalgam of 21st-century electronic squiggles and vintage airy psych-
folk, as contemporary as video games and as old as the hills"
Spin.com

Pop Mutations presents:
Hayden Pedigo
+ Special Guests
Thursday 4th September
Mono
18+

FADE IN:
EXT. SPARSE LANDSCAPE – DAY
A topography difficult to imagine in more than two dimensions; ocher
and cerulean in a 50/50 horizontal split.
A kaleidoscopic son of cowboy country — no trendy pretender, but
truly sprung from the sky and soil of the Texas panhandle — steps
into frame, wearing chain mail or a pinstripe suit or at least ten
gallons of hat. HAYDEN PEDIGO narrows his eyes, furrows his brow and
flexes the fingers and pick-ringed thumb of his right hand, before
grabbing for the grip of a dueling pistol which is actually a water
pistol, a balloon sword, or an inflatable guitar.

*

So run the reels of The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, Pedigo’s sixth studio album (and second
for Mexican Summer) in the cinema of your ear; its script written in steel-string, its starring
director a 28-year-old performance artist, politician, model, and fingerstyling maestro whose
talent is as irrepressible as it is undeniable.
Pedigo has lived many lives, having been homeschooled in Amarillo, Texas by his truck-stop
preacher father; run for Amarillo City Council in 2019, aged 25—as documented by Jasmine
Stodel’s SXSW-premiering, PBS-acquired film Kid Candidate—and struck up pen-friendships
and collaborative partnerships with the likes of Terry Allen, Charles Hayward (This Heat),
Werner “Zappi” Diermaier (Faust), and Tim Heidecker. A move south from Amarillo to Lubbock
in 2020 put a spark to the powder keg of his creativity. “It’s even more flat, desolate, windy and
dirty – like being on Mars,” Pedigo observes. “It’s pushed me to create more because there’s
not really much to distract.” The move produced not only The Happiest Times and its
predecessor Letting Go, but also an Internet presence that showcases a panoply of ever-more
outlandish outfits and an effortless deadpan wit. Both the former and the latter helped parlay
him into the fashion world, too, having walked the runway for Gucci and been photographed by
Hedi Slimane.
Inspired by the tragicomedic legacy of National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney (in whose
notes the line ‘These last few days are amongst the happiest I’ve ever ignored’ was found
following his mysterious and untimely death), Pedigo embarked upon The Happiest Times with
a no-shit aim: to create “the best instrumental acoustic guitar album of the past twenty years.”
Though canonical works of comedy and music show their influence—the mournful beauty of
Nick Drake, the puckish abandon of John Fahey—Pedigo by no means places their creators on

pedestals; if anything pulling them from their plinths, smashing the alabasters, pocketing some
pieces, gluing others back together upside down, or leaving them floating free.
How might Fahey have played in a Midwest emo band? Pedigo posits on “Nearer, Nearer,”
while the specters of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn float somewhere above “Signal of Hope”
– “the most British-sounding thing I’ve ever written;” an echo in an empty church. Pedigo flits
through the cycle of songs, coiling and uncoiling like the mechanism of a clockwork bird on
“When It’s Clear;” rambling, a tiny speck in the landscape, on “Elsewhere.” “Then It’s Gone”
stands as stark as a leafless tree, guitar spilling a somber tale in its truest voice – and nowhere
more than on the title track is Pedigo’s playing more affecting: regret and optimism balanced
on intimate, intricate arrangement, as carefully poised as raindrops on guitar strings.
Citing a “rigid relationship with guitar” in which he has only slices of time to adequately express
himself (“I have a five minute window to do something meaningful, and if it doesn’t come within
five minutes, then it goes back in the case”), Pedigo wrote each song separately, start to finish,
one by one. When an album’s worth of songs had been written, he undertook an intense
regime of rehearsal, playing and replaying The Happiest Times on a loop, testing his technical
ability, always striving for tighter, purer and more concise iterations.
In June 2022, Pedigo transported the limbered-up record to Pulp Arts in Gainesville, Florida,
where the relentless practice paid off: he played the core acoustic compositions in track order,
beginning to end, and by the evening of the first day, realized he’d essentially nailed the record
in one go. After tracking the main narrative of the guitar, a studio team of producer Trayer Tryon
(Hundred Waters, Moses Sumney) on synths and bass, Luke Schneider (Margo Price, Orville
Peck) on pedal steel, and Robert Edmondson on electric bass and piano painted in a sunset of
sound behind the acoustic parts, lighting them with a warm glow while allowing them to remain
front and center of the scene.
If the rolling strings of Letting Go planted and germinated the seeds, then The Happiest Times
sees Hayden grow the flowers, admire their ruffles, and take newly sharpened scissors to the
stems; turmoil and perfectionism and the gods of chaos driving the hand that holds the shears.
“I want to create something very melodic, and then put it behind a barbed wire fence,” Hayden
reflects. “If you’re gonna get this pretty thing, then you might get cut up trying to get to it.”
Pedigo’s particular brand of barb comes in a variety of shapes: the carousel of internet
personas that prod and jest (one day a 1970s car salesman, the next perhaps a Burger King
attendant or gogo-booted knight); beautiful yet uneasy technicolor album artworks that place
him incongruously corpse-painted at a gas station or glowing in ultraviolet on the parking lot of
a flaming Walmart; or, in the music itself, pauses which verge on the uncomfortably long while

the well-mannered audience member shuffles in their seat, trying to work out whether to clap
yet or not.
At their most profound, Pedigo’s spacious, pristine soundscapes communicate an essential
truth about the pursuit of artistic perfection. Creating The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored was,
he surmises, a process akin to “the dog chasing the mail truck – what do you do when you
catch it?”

*

BACK TO
EXT. SPARSE LANDSCAPE – SAME
As HAYDEN wields his weapon of choice, PAN OUT to reveal that his
dueling partner is his double, standing in mirror image. One laughs,
one cries, each dampening the dirt with a single tear. He is a lone
star in multiple; challenged and challenger both.
FADE OUT.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

R.M.F.C 

+ Special Guests

Wednesday 3rd September

The Flying Duck 

18+

ROCK MUSIC FIGHT CRINGE
What is modern music writing without the opening descriptor “long awaited”? To describe most records as being awaited is ridiculous. Nobody today has the patience to wait for a text or a tram or a traffic light... and yet... there is something here, I have a point to make...
Please resist cringe – I will not cringe, cringe is the mindkiller – I assure you, I never use words like “long awaited debut” in polite conversation and avoid those who do by general rule.
But.

ROCK MUSIC FINESSE CLASS
The imminent arrival of the R.M.F.C. long awaited debut means rules must be broken, tablets must be shattered, sacred pigs must be slaughtered...
In our age of media saturation and attention deficit, where every band has side project with a triple LP catalogue before they’ve played a show or had opportunity to tease or tantalise, there’s a lot of easy music being created... and forgotten... look back over the past decade and see how many hype bands you’ve forgotten, how many redundant “long awaited debut” ended up
ashen within a month. Nobody is waiting for more easy music. We are waiting for the R.M.F.C.
Club Hits LP. Anyone paying attention to underground Australian guitar overdose would relate: the R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP has been the culmination of five years of work, patience and discipline. If you’ve heard these songs live at any of their shows over the past couple of years you’ll understand – the wait is over and the result is exhilarating.

ROCK MUSIC FANATIC CONVULSIONS
To your average German the sound of Bach made them reverent with Lutheran frenzy, and for the average rock music fan the sound of R.M.F.C. makes them catatonic with guitar overdose. To your exceptional German composer that came after Bach, the sounds of Bach inspired genius invention, and for the generation of exceptional rock music creators that come to Club Hits, a great deal of easy listening rock music has become redundant and this is a new
standard: the craft of these songs is precise, the flow of this record is masterful.
Club Hits is one of those rare records that sounds absolutely of its time without evoking depression, despair and disgust – for we live in times of desperation that most rock music bands are adorning with insipid, tedious tunes that couldn’t make most people put their phone down let alone believe in R.M. – but with the benefit of 80 years of ROCK MUSIC to draw on, there’s a lot of mistakes that Buz learned from and hasn’t replicated here.

ROCK MUSIC FOOTBALL CLUB

I like music and I like football. I like physicality, sweat, blood, I like music with guitar and drum...
I like to experience being in the presence of violent movement that is graceful and produces goals or songs...
Great live band this R.M.F.C. Kicking goals, making songs.
If not for the experience of watching them play these club hits live, I don’t think we would be “awaiting” this record. Which is to say, on record FC President Buz takes on all duties: songs written, songs recorded and songs mixed by the Commander In Chief Clatworthy.
If this was the extent of it, if we couldn’t SEE and FEEL the rock music in R.M.F.C., if it was RECORDED MUSIC FAN CLUB - I’m sure you understand me – Buz has managed to make a solo bedroom project into a rock music band of great quality, and hearing these songs develop and stick in your head for days and weeks and months after the show, festering and waiting to
be unleashed on the world this coming November 3rd.

ROCK MUSIC FAN CLUB
For those who read these things without listening first, you might ask: what does this R.M.F.C. sound like?
Let’s stay with the overused descriptors – I think R.M.F.C. is rock music band, more specifically a post-punk band. Indulge me.
If you could say anything about post punk it means post-Wire, who were past punk before punk had an opportunity to codify and become everything brilliant and stupid that we’ve spent 40 years unpacking.
Wire unpacked punk immediately and spent three perfect albums mapping what comes next – their “long awaited debut” came after a pub rock punk phase... and entered into the world of angular guitars and arctic ice feel.
Wire’s opening Pink Flag jab – Chairs Missing straight – and 154 hook knockout has haunted the mixing desks of ambitious post-punk bands since, and every major city in the western world has at least one Pink Flag band, one Chairs Missing band, one 154 band. Few bands manage to sound like all 3 records, but R.M.F.C. are rock music fan club...

ROCK MUSIC FREAK CLUB
One day when I listened to the Velvet Underground ‘What Goes On’, I thought: this is a perfect song. I could listen to this song for hours on end. I did this – I listened to live versions, multiple ten minute plus jams, alternate mixes, and then back to the album. Over and over again. The song continually delivered new revelations, I saw a golden path leading through a dark cloud of
misery, surrounded by spite and resentment, a golden path leading toward something better...
and in Club Hits, I hear that same obsessive nature, I could imagine you understand this too, I know I am not alone in listening to rock music like I am encountering the sacred sound of a new religion... you must be obsessed to make music like this, and you must also respond with true passion and devotion... our times need the Club Hits...

Pop Mutations presents:
Lily Seabird
+ Nightshift

+ Cormac Nagle
Tuesday 2nd September
The Glad Cafe
18+

Since 2023, Lily Seabird’s life has been in perpetual motion, spending nearly half of that time on the road performing her own music and as a touring bassist. While she thrives in transit, back home she is anchored by “Trash Mountain,” a pink house surrounded by other artists situated on a decommissioned landfill site at the back of Burlington’s Old North End. Here, Seabird has found belonging, friendship, and inspiration. It’s a place that hosts artists, puts on shows, and has been passed along in her friend group for the better part of the decade. It’s a symbol of transition and stability: something always evolving and growing but never losing its soul. It's only fitting that Seabird named her new album Trash Mountain, as it also contains its namesake's qualities. Over nine delicate but sturdy tracks of intimate folk rock, she pares her songwriting down to its most resonant essentials. It’s an album of unwelcome exits and uncertain futures, but there’s resiliency and hope at its core.

Where Seabird’s previous records—2024’s Alas, and 2021’s Beside Myself—were written over the course of a year, Trash Mountain practically poured out of Seabird: three months of songwriting in spring 2024, followed by four days of tracking with Kevin Copeland (Hannah Frances, Lightning Bug, Allegra Krieger) in his Southern Vermont studio in the summer. While the grief that enveloped Alas,, which dealt with her best friend’s suicide, still lingers, it’s settled into healing and reflection on Trash Mountain. On “It was like you were coming to wake us back up,” Seabird vividly paints a brief moment of seeing a person outside her house who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dearly deceased. Rather than mourning, she finds comfort and healing in the vision. “In the past, I used to come to songwriting when I was in crisis,” admits Seabird. “Only recently have I come to songwriting when I am feeling other things beyond emergency and disruption."

The album’s arrangements are markedly sparse and intentional, a shift from the layered Alas, and Beside Myself, allowing Seabird’s writing to soar and stand starkly centered. Only three songs feature her longtime touring band in guitarist Greg Freeman, bassist Nina Cates (Robber Robber), and drummer Zack James (Dari Bay, Robber Robber). On the stunning “How far away,” she’s backed only by a piano played by Sam Atallah which makes for elegiac catharsis. “I've finally accepted that I'm a singer-songwriter,” she says with a shrug. “Not everything has to be some big rock song.” Seabird cites Elliott Smith, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen as influences on Trash Mountain, and much like the latter, her evocative, emotionally potent lyrics find her looking for cracks in the darkness where light comes in.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
GNOD
+ Special Guests
Sunday 24th August
Stereo
18+

Since their inception, Gnod’s musical trajectory has been one of constant fluctuation borne out of an incessant need to discover new sonic worlds. Beginning life as a shamanic drone ensemble, at times fitting up to 15 members on stage, these early rituals informed the core ideals that have come to define the group in their years of activity; community and trance-inducing repetition. Throughout a discography that has amassed dozens of CD-R’s, cassettes and vinyls for labels like Rocket Recordings, Trensmat, Krokodilo (Blackest Ever Black) and their own Tesla Tapes imprint, a restless yet organic need mutate their music into new realms has had critics clawing for comparative touch stones. Acts as far ranging as Hawkwind, Popul Vuh, Pan Sonic, Sunburned Hand of the Man and Pharaoh Sanders have all been referenced in attempt to pinpoint their output, one that has historically never aped any genre but with each record furthered their own unique place in truly independent music. It is the exact same dedication to the live arena that has seen Gnod become one of the most celebrated live bands in the UK and secured them multiple tours and festival appearances throughout Europe. In these times of cash in hand ‘glory days’ reunions and bands simply rehashing their recorded material pitch perfect live, Gnod are a stark and welcome anomaly. Already moving on from the barley released and universally acclaimed epic ‘Infinity Machines’, the current live incarnation of the band is characterised by a crushing, cataclysmic new protest music whose call to arms gravitas offers a meaningful defiance to Cameron’s Austerity Britain. Gnod have taken their very namesake and charged it with bludgeoning new edge that is as euphoric as it is nihilistic. It is one that stridently attests to the group’s spiritual center, one of community that is inclusive and respectful of its audience yet will never placate to their expectations. Instead, Gnod offer a gateway to an aural black hole and along with firm guiding hand, the opportunity to dive head and body first into a powerfully new psychedelic maelstrom full of possibilities.

Pop Mutations presents:
Jackie-O-Motherfucker
+ Special Guests
Friday 22nd August
The Glad Cafe
18+

Jackie-O Motherfucker was founded by Tom Greenwood in the mid 90’s, the group has had more than forty members over the years drawn from the U.S. experimental scene, notably Natalie Mering, who now records under Weyes Blood, briefly on bass. The current line up is a 4 piece lead by Tom
Greenwood.
Jackie-O Motherfucker's music draws from a variety of subgenres including various folk musics of the world, drone, free jazz, psychedelia, and noise rock, and is heavily improvisational in its nature.
The group has had recordings released by many different labels including Fire Records, Ecstatic Peace, Feeding Tube Records, ATP Recordings and their own U-Sound Archive and has been on several international tours including several performances at All Tomorrow's Parties Festivals by way of Sonic Youth. The band played the 2002 and 2004 festivals curated by Sonic Youth and the 2007 festival curated by Thurston Moore

The Glad Cafe & Pop Mutations present:

RobinAugust

plus The Zebecks + Kim Logan & The Silhouettes

18+ show

RobinAugust is a pop-rock artist and songwriter from Nashville, TN. Her influences are as unruly as her wild red hair, ranging from Radiohead to Lana Del Rey to Joan Jett. Her songs are characterized by her smoky vocals, big choruses, larger than life emotions, and lyrics like a knife sharpened to cut ex-lovers. With songs written to be performed on stage, she is romance and hysteria wrapped in a fur coat, demanding to be heard! In the UK for her first ever tour outside of the United States, RobinAugust and her band will play additional shows in Bristol and at Third Man London.

The Zebecks are carrying the Scottish Indie torch for the next generation. Originally from Elgin, the band uprooted their small-town lives to pursue a shared musical dream in Glasgow. 2024 saw three singles, a King Tut’s headline, a sold-out hometown show, and a BBC Introducing Stage performance at Tenement Trail, where they brought the festival’s headliner Declan Welsh onstage to perform their collaborative single ‘Life Advice.’ This year brings an exciting new chapter for the band with BBC Radio Scotland naming them in their “25 Scottish Artists to Watch in 2025” and another live set at Tenement Trail in October.

Kim Logan & the Silhouettes make alternative music about alchemy and politics, primed for our current time of societal collapse. Their sounds are fused from origins in the American South and the industrial cities of the UK, bringing a new blend of rock music for life on the brink of a collective new age. Kim Logan's collaborations have included Vance Powell, Brett Orrison, Low Cut Connie, Dominic Davis, Rex Roulette, Barrie-James O’Neill, Ade Omotayo, Tyler Bryant, Nikki Lane, and many more. Recent and upcoming shows include Great Escape 2025, Dash the Henge (London), and Montmartre Festival 2025 in Paris.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
HONK
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 19th August
The Glad Cafe
18+

Honk are a genre-warping six-piece that are here to rewire your idea of country music. It’s called “Trashcan Country" - a raucous, rough-edged twist on twang. It’s been dragged through the back alleys of punk, doused in garage-rock grit, and left to dry in the blazing sun.

At the core of Honk is their electrifying live show - equal parts hoedown and meltdown - which has earned them support slots with trailblazers like Meryl Streak, Delivery, and Being Dead, as well as consistent backing from BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley.

With The Real Red Foley, Randy Harrison, Chubby Hellrat, Yeehaw Culhane, L.E. Steel, and Stanley Knife at the helm, Honk delivers a sound that’ll make you stomp your boots — or knock them clean off. As their debut album, One Star, prepares to drop this May on Swish Swash and chrüsimüsi Records, the buzz is building into a full-blown roar.

*Rescheduled show. Original tickets remain valid.*

Pop Mutations presents:

Chris Cohen

plus Simone Antigone

Tuesday 29th July at The Glad Cafe

18+ show

Chris Cohen was always a quiet kid. In fact, this introversion was one reason he began playing music as a toddler—to communicate without speaking to identify with others without the direct representation of words. It has worked, too, with Cohen’s terrific stint in the mighty Deerhoof and his own captivating art-rock act The Curtains, preceding production and session work for the likes of Weyes Blood, Kurt Vile, Le Ren, and Marina Allen. Somewhere along that long way, Cohen started writing lyrics. He found that, though it didn’t come naturally, the process offered a new sense of self-discovery and reckoning, a way to see himself and the world from unexpected angles. His three twilit albums of casually complicated pop during the last decade radiated these epiphanies: handling family strife, navigating advancing age, and understanding social woes.

But Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on Paint a Room, his first album in five years and his debut for Hardly Art. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time. There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”: this is Cohen communicating with friends not only through his deep understanding of groove, harmony, and hook but also with his listeners through songs that croon of our uneasy little era.

In the past, Cohen made records in spells of isolation, phases when, as he puts it, he would “try to make my world a lot smaller.” He would play any of a dozen or so instruments until he stumbled upon something interesting, then slowly build upward and outward upon the idea. The method was solitary and stepwise, an act of accretion and deletion.

Cohen, though, has been playing live with bassist Davin Givhan, drummer Josh da Costa, and keyboardist Jay Israelson in some fashion for the better part of a decade. This time around, then, he built demos in the dusty garage of the suburban Altadena rental that smelled like old wood and gasoline and tried something new—he took the songs on tour with that crew, yielding total control by letting them fill in or flourish their own parts as they saw fit. They came back home and began recording as a band.

Cohen even called in a few friends to help, with Jeff Parker contributing the fluttering horn arrangement on “Damage,” and Parker collaborator Josh Johnson (who produced Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-Award-winning album The Omnichord Real Book) supplying flute, sax, and clarinet arrangements throughout the record. It felt a little bit like producing someone else’s records, with Cohen given the chance to step back and evaluate others’ contributions to his own songs rather than scrutinize every little bit he made himself. This was a longtime ambition realized, another way of relating to others openly through sound.

Cohen, really, has never sounded so assured on a solo album, gliding above or sinking into this band that boasts a preternatural sense of feel. On “Damage,” as he surveys the way we lord power over people with less of it in most every walk of life, his voice lifts above Johnson’s horns like he’s looking for a way out. Cohen wrote “Sunever” for a transgender child in his life, while considering the violence that hard-and-fast categories can create. This song reminds us that we are “always in between,” that transitions are just a part of life. With the hook, he sweetly sings his vow: “You’re gonna find a way.” Cohen is tender and vulnerable in the lead, his voice cracking with feeling as the tune presses forward toward a better future. Written by cutting and pasting phrases from the unemployment form he filled out at the pandemic’s start, the frolicking “Physical Address” considers what it is we all want for our lives, how we untether ourselves from the past in the present. On Paint a Room, Cohen’s music feels like a warm spring breeze, easy to love and gentle to feel. But it’s often carrying something heavy, as if blowing in from some unseen storm cloud.

Cohen had another hobby as a kid: transcendental meditation, a practice his parents taught him when he was six. It’s still part of his life, a window into observing his thought processes, habits, and relationship to the rest of the world. Making music—and, turns out, writing lyrics for it—works in a similar way for Cohen, as he’s able to understand and then articulate notions that wouldn’t be so easy with the absolutism of mere words. Paint a Room both reckons with reality and conjures an alternate one, where nighttime walks and a neighbor’s wind chimes offer endless escapes for the imagination, space for the mind to roam. Sublime and sunlit, these 10 songs consider dreamy new ways out of old predicaments, clearly stating the problem and dancing and singing their way somewhere new.

Simone Antigone is a Glasgow based project fronted by Simone Wilson - exploring composition through realms of voice, strings, (Jack Mellin, Loup Havenith) percussion (Christopher Wallace) and woodwind (Georgia Harris). Drawing from myth, transformation and swampy emotional terrain, they together create a sound that is dreamlike and ever-changing.

Pop Mutations & Monorail Music present:
Autocamper
plus Radhika
Sunday 13th July at The Glad Cafe
18+ show

Manchester’s Autocamper are the perfect pop antidote to the city’s predictable post-punk machismo. Like a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines’ call and response motif, vocal duties are shared by Jack Harkins and Niamh Purtill—their world-weary reflections on bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors capture the jangle pop spirit of the ‘80s without the C86 revisionism.
Autocamper were formed on a crisp, autumnal evening in October 2022; via a combination of mutual friends, anonymous internet ads and chance encounters at an Umbrellas’ gig (future Slumberland Records label mates). Honing their sound across the ever-dwindling practice spaces of the city, much of the album was thrashed out between the backrooms of pubs, half-constructed studio spaces, and a (now demolished) disused commercial kitchen unit. Though a true DIY sensibility permeates the music and ethos of the band, their debut LP sees them step up a level from previous self-recorded releases.

Radhika is a Glasgow based artist of Indian heritage. From an early age, she has been exposed to all forms of music in her creative home. Having spent her younger years immersing herself in the lyrics on the sleeves of her father’s record collection, this is what inspired her to start writing her own songs at the age of ten. She has performed at a variety of venues/festivals including Celtic Connections, The Poetry Club, Glad Cafe, Glasgow Mela and King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.Her main inspirations are Nick Drake, Cocteau Twins and Strawberry Switchblade.

Pop Mutations presents:
Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham
+ Special Guests
Sunday 13th July
The Doublet
18+

As colleagues in the UK group Modern Nature, Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper play measured music that never feels constrained. The same can be said of their first duo album together, Pond Life, which is even more minimal than the work of their other project. Across ten tracks named for various aspects of the album’s title (e.g. “Fern,” “Koi,” “Great Crested Newt”), the pair gradually pluck their strings, leaving lots of space in between each sonic motion. Everything always seems to be fading out of view; the mesmerizing pace evokes Loren Connors’ sparse abstractions. But the mood Cunningham and Cooper create, one of reverence and exploration, is all their own.

For fans of Bill Orcutt, Bitchin’ Bajas , Taku Sugimoto and Jim O’Rourke

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

Sid Simons

+ Special Guests

Tuesday 1st July

The Old Hairdresser's

18+ 

"Fresh off his debut album under his own name, a North American headline tour, and a year-long occupation atop NYC’s rock n’ roll scene, Sid Simons looks to keep the party going in 2025 across the continent of Europe. Simons released his sparkling debut album Beneath The Brightest Smiles in 2024, which slickly fused the likes of folkier sensibilities reminiscent of Big Thief and Elliott Smith with a tendency to locate the nearest overdrive pedal and arrive at guitar anthems not unlike The Strokes or Oasis. Backed by an eclectic band, Sid overtook some of NYC’s most storied venues such as Bowery Ballroom and Irving for exceptionally reviewed and memorable live shows all year. Sid will have a new EP out - The Last American Valentine - in early 2025.”

Pop Mutations & Freakender presents:
ESCAPE-ISM
+ Lungleg
Tuesday 1st July
Stereo
18+

ESCAPE-ISM —known as the “found sound dream drama”— is a group specializing in “minimal rock ’n’ roll” led by Ian F Svenonius on voice, beat machine, and electric guitar & featuring Sandi Denton on electric bass guitar, voice, & keyboard.

As art & expression kneels in servility to corporate dictums, ESCAPE-ISM is an outlier. They’re the “rock ’n’ roll animinimalist” that rides the rails with a bindle stick; a “what me worry?” tramp who haunts out-of-the-way watering holes frequented by roughshod holdouts against computer conformity.

Known for their offhand musical insouciance, ESCAPE-ISM has gathered a devout following of know nothing acolytes across the globe. ESCAPE-ISM also hosts a series of evenings at Los Angles’ Zebulon nightclub entitled “Rated Z”, named for their full length album Rated Z (2022, Radical Elite/Monotone records). These rock ‘n’ roll revues are legendary events of simulated excitement.

In 2021, ESCAPE-ISM released “A Protest Against Sound,” a 40 minute silent vinyl record on their own label Radical Elite Records, to register their discontent with the state of music. Tapping into popular discontent, it sold out in mere moments.

The next year, the group released a feature length film THE LOST RECORD (directed & produced by I.F. Svenonius & A Cabral), based on the ESCAPE-ISM album of the same name. It won several awards (Chicago Underground Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, et al) and toured the arthouses of the world. The soundtrack to this record will be released on In The Red Records.

ESCAPE-ISM represents our last hope to wreck civilization. All hail Minimal Rock ’n’ Roll!

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
C.O.F.F.I.N
+ Special Guests
Sunday 29th June
Stereo
18+

Sydney's very own hard-biting rockers; C.O.F.F.I.N are a four piece, full force, boogie rock ‘n’ roll band featuring snarling lead vocals from behind the drum kit, high voltage lead guitars, and steady rhythms that keep you stomping along.

With an infectious hip-shaking groove, a chaotic, punk live show and a commanding voice of political activism, C.O.F.F.I.N has captivated a passionate following and widespread acclaim across the globe. They’ve clocked hundreds of high velocity performances, countless headline
tours and unforgettable festival appearances, and has shared the stage with iconic and influential bands such as Amyl and the Sniffers, Tropical F*ck Storm, TSOL, Celibate Rifles, Dead Kennedys, Misfits, and the Hard-Ons to name a few.

Exploring song themes on their own Australian experience, C.O.F.F.I.N voice their juxtaposition between the serenity and beauty of the stolen lands we walk and live, as well as the harrowing social injustices and prejudice that is deeply ingrained within Australian culture. Every performance is a platform and an opportunity to voice for positive cultural change and there is
never a stage too large or small to challenge and confront outdated, yet modern Australian-ideals.

C.O.F.F.I.N have recorded and released five studio albums, one live album, and three EPs, all of which have sold out globally. Their most recent LP entitled ‘Australia Stops’, was released through Goner Records (US), Bad Vibrations (UK) and Damaged Record Co. (AU) in September 2023, debuting at #2 on the Australian ARIA Charts, winning ‘Best Hard Rock/Heavy
Album’ at the National Live Music Awards and an end-of-year appearance at the highly cherished Meredith Music Festival. Internationally, the band received higher global recognition and acclaim, reaching #5 in Vive Le Rock’s top 50 albums of the year of 2023 (UK), plus features in Rolling Stone (France) and Visions Magazine (Germany).

With an unquenchable thirst for adventure and discovery, C.O.F.F.I.N have set out on several international tours across the USA, Europe, UK and Asia. They’ve joined esteemed international festival bills such as Wide Awake Festival (UK), Binic Folks Blues Festival (France), Goner Fest
(USA), Palp Festival (Switzerland) and SonicBlast Festival (Portugal) amongst many others.

Caleb Nichols,
Count Florida
& First Wives
20th June 2025
The Glad Cafe
18+

Caleb Nichols put himself on the map with Ramon, a critically acclaimed queer Beatles rock opera. Now, he’s tackling something of a more radical proposition — just 11 great songs, full stop.Nichols is out with his new album, Let’s Look Back — his second full-length album on the hallowed indie label Kill Rock Stars. “It’s about the idea that you have to look back and confront stuff before you can move forward,” Nichols says. “It’s about vindication, and reintegration, and trusting yourself.” Produced by Zach Rogue of Rogue Wave, Let’s Look Back’s highlights are everywhere — from the unstoppable power-pop rocket that is “Demon Twink” to the luminous pop of “J’ai Vu La Lune!” to the bold and brassy “Wicked.” “I’m not the good witch/ I’m the bad one!” goes Nichols’ infectiously catchy refrain. But Let’s Look Back is most definitely a good one — one that will send fans of early 2000s indie rock, from the Shins to the Decemberists to Belle and Sebastian, to heaven.

Das Kinn
with Ceefax & han
18th June 2025
The Flying Duck
18+

With his first full-length album ‘Ruinenkampf’, to be released via Hamburg based quality label Bureau B, Das Kinn embarks on a musical tour de force through the ruins of our time. An electronic armada and kickbox-phonetics lead us through haunting soundscapes somewhere between DAF, Kosmische Kuriere and Frankfurt Bahnhofsviertel. Beats on full blast. Bones rattle. Warm synthlines played by cold hands. A saxophone ponders the after. Hymns for the demolition. Sonic meditations on decay. Music for the solemn decline.

“Music is the only art form that can tear down and build up at the same time. We have just witnessed this event of simultaneity.“ – Hendrik Otremba

For almost two decades, sound activist Toben Piel has been emitting knocking signs and signal sounds from the catacombs around the bank towers of Frankfurt/Germany. As part of the music-performance duo Les Trucs, as co-founder of the tape label MMODEMM and with works for theater and radio.

His latest coup “Ruinenkampf” will be released on 02.05.2025 via Bureau B.

Adventure Team

+ Dancer
14/06/2025
The Glad Cafe
18+

Adventure Team are an International Pop Underground band from Berlin. Jonathan, Juan & Ian. “In Giraffe” out now on @heavenlycrecs.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
New Candys
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 10th June
Stereo
18+

Concocted with the darkest deviant rock'n'roll ethos and distinctive melodic distortions, New Candys have established themselves as one of the most compelling bands to emerge from Italy in recent years. Founded by songwriter and singer-guitarist Fernando Nuti alongside bassist and synth player Dario Lucchesi, the lineup is completed by Emanuele Zanardo on lead guitar and backing vocals and Francesco Giacomin on drums and sampler.
Signed to the cult record label Fuzz Club, the band is recognized for its unfiltered artistic approach and versatility, seamlessly blending aggressive, gritty sounds with dreamy, introspective tones. The symbolism of their hometown, Venezia, often permeates their music, which explores surreal and sometimes cryptic themes.

New Candys' live shows have gained them a reputation as a must-see act, growing a fanbase through extensive touring across Europe, North America and Australia. Festival appearances include SXSW, Treefort Music Fest, Psycho Las Vegas, Levitation France, Fuzz Club Eindhoven and Liverpool Psych Fest, as well as headlining the Sydney and Melbourne Psych Fests and recording live sessions for KEXP and Jam In The Van. They’ve shared the stage with icons like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols and The Black Angels, performing at historic venues such as the Olympia Hall in Paris, The Roundhouse in London and Huxleys Neue Welt in Berlin. Iggy Pop described them as "kinky", and their songs have been featured in episodes of Showtime’s original series Shameless.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

The Veldt + TREMOURS

Monday 9th June

The Glad Cafe

18+ 

Emerging from the dynamic music scene of North Carolina in the 1980s, The Veldt crafted a sound that seamlessly melds shoegaze and progressive soul, carving out a distinct niche within the first wave of shoegaze bands worldwide. Their music is a mesmerizing blend of ethereal atmospheres, sultry melodies, and irresistible rhythms, establishing them as a standout presence in the genre.

Drawing from a rich tapestry of influences, The Veldt's music embodies a fusion of emotional depth and daring experimentation. Infused with the soulful resonance of Marvin Gaye, the avant-garde spirit of Sun Ra, and the improvisational brilliance of Pharaoh Sanders, their sonic palette is both profound and boldly innovative.

Rooted in the musical traditions of their upbringing, particularly in the church and southern juke-joints, The Veldt's journey began at a young age. A diverse range of inspirations, including gospel, Motown, and the psychedelic sounds of Pink Floyd shaped their musical evolution.

Following their signing to Capitol Records in 1989, The Veldt embarked on a transformative musical journey. Collaborating with dream-gaze luminary Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, they began crafting their debut album, 'Illuminated 1989'. Although initially shelved by the label, their subsequent releases, including the acclaimed 'Marigolds' in 1992 and the seminal 'Afrodisiac' in 1994, garnered widespread praise and cemented their place in the shoegaze

canon. With “Afrodisiac” ultimately found its way onto Pitchfork’s list of the “Top 50 Shoegaze Albums Ever Released”.

Throughout their career, The Veldt has collaborated with an array of influential artists, including TV On The Radio, Mos Def, and Lady Miss Kier (Deee-Lite), while sharing stages with luminaries such as Phantogram, Living Colour, Oasis, Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Pixies. Their extensive touring history, spanning the US, Canada, and Europe, has seen them grace stages

alongside icons like the Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Transitioning briefly to Apollo Heights before reclaiming their original moniker, The Veldt has remained a force of innovation and creativity. Their recent endeavors, including the long-awaited release of 'Illuminated 1989' and their continued exploration of vibrant sonic landscapes, reaffirm their status as pioneers in the genre.

The Veldt's enduring legacy promises to inspire future generations with their boundary-pushing sounds and unwavering artistic vision as they forge ahead.

Pop Mutations presents:

Kontravoid

+ Buzz Kull

Monday 9th June

Stereo

18+

Tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations

KONTRAVOID

Kontravoid’s masked mystique has remained for over a decade. Ever since the release of his self-titled LP in 2012, the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based Cameron Findlay has perfected dark pop with his oeuvre that teeters between the EBM, electro and goth genres. His productions, such as 2019’s “Too Deep” and 2021’s “Faceless,” dive to the most derelict corners of foggy, strobe-lit clubs: there is no choice but to dance. But there is an uncanny softness and obvious songwriting ability to compose heart-wrenching songs that are both captivating and drenched in melancholy—2018’s “Undone” has been a fan favorite since it came out on Berlin’s Fleisch Records.

Onstage, Kontravoid demands the audience’s attention with his powerful performance that balances his specific concoction of harsh beats with his signature bass line rhythmic patterns. He’s toured alongside Boy Harsher, ADULT., Drab Majesty and Hide, and has remixed the likes of Schwefelgelb and Kris Baha. Truly a man of the shadows, Kontravoid is an unparalleled fixture in the dark electronic arena.

BUZZ KULL

Buzz Kull exists as an enigmatic force in the Australian underground scene, he embodies the raw essence of existential longing and emotional desolation. With a sonic palette that paints in shades of darkness, Buzz

Kull's music unveils the hidden depths of the human psyche with haunting precision.

Drawing inspiration from the fringes of post-punk, coldwave, and minimal wave, Buzz Kull weaves together pulsating synths, relentless drum machines, and haunting vocals that becomes a vessel for catharsis, a

conduit for the unspoken yearnings and existential questions that weigh heavy on the human spirit.

Through Buzz Kull’s exploration in sound, they invite us to embrace our own vulnerabilities, to confront the demons that lurk within, and to find solace in the beauty of misery. In a world obsessed with surface appearances, Buzz Kull reminds us that the true depths

of the human experience can only be discovered by

diving into the darkness.

William Tyler is a Nashville guitarist and composer. He spent years woodshedding and touring with Nashville groups like Lambchop and Silver Jews before breaking away to focus on his own version of instrumental guitar music.

Pop Mutations presents:

caroline

plus Crosspiece (Theodora Laird & Caius Williams)

Saturday 7th June at Saint Luke’s

Doors 7pm

18+ show

Please note ticket price includes a £1 venue levy that goes to the maintenance and restoration of Saint Luke's.

—

Returning with 'caroline 2', the eight-piece collective embrace a bolder, more expansive sound. Going beyond their debut's explorations of repetition, slowness and space, the new album pushes further into dynamic contrasts — organic and electronic, raw and refined. Launched with the striking single ‘Tell me I never knew that’, featuring Caroline Polachek’s unmistakable vocals, caroline 2 showcases a fearless interplay of layered instrumentation, warped vocal processing, and moments of both euphoria and melancholy. Intentional and immersive, this next chapter solidifies caroline as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary music. Catch their powerful live show on tour.

‘Crosspiece’ is the duo project of Theodora Laird and Caius Williams. Through both composed and improvised material, they examine the tensions and fragility of dualism.

Theodora Laird is a vocalist and multidisciplinary artist. Releases under her solo project ‘feeo’ have received critical acclaim. Theodora’s practice has involved in tandem with an interest in situating narratives within freely improvised music, specifically through frequent involvement in the GRAIN residency.

Caius Williams is a musician working within experimental and improvised music. He has a collaborative duo with Theodora Laird (‘Crosspiece’), solo projects working with both double bass and baritone guitar, has played bass in Lifetones (a project of Charles Bullen of This Heat), and plays baritone guitar in Theodora’s project ‘feeo’. Caius also regularly works with many of London’s notable improvisers, including Steve Noble, Tara Cunningham, Maggie Nicols, Tom Challenger, Mark Sanders, and others.

Recent releases include ‘Gwannach’ (OTOROKU), ‘Crosspiece’ with Theodora Laird (Cherche Encore), and ‘Worn’, in trio with Tara Cunningham and Will Glaser.

Pop Mutations presents:
Trace Mountains
+ U.S. Highball
+ Dropkick
Sunday 1st June
The Flying Duck
18+

Trace Mountains is the music project of American indie rock musician Dave Benton. Benton has released four albums and one compilation of demos as Trace Mountains and is a member of the lo-fi band LVL UP. His latest record, Into The Burning Blue came out in September of 2024. 

Pop Mutations presents:

Patio (NYC)

plus special guests

Friday 30th May at The Glad Cafe

—

New York’s Patio formed when non-musician Loren DiBlasi met actual musician Lindsey-Paige McCloy, and a joke about outdoor day drinking turned into a real-life band. The duo was soon joined by Alice Suh, a college friend of McCloy's who had recently started learning drums. Instantly, the trio developed a signature sound of sparse, melodic post-punk, signing with Fire Talk Records and releasing acclaimed debut Essentials in 2019.

On latest album Collection, new sonic influences like disco and 2000s NYC indie evoke freedom and euphoric joy — maintaining the band’s signature minimalism, but with newfound confidence and control. Produced by Nate Amos (Water from Your Eyes, This Is Lorelei), Collection was named one of the best indie rock albums of 2023 by Rolling Stone.

Pop Mutations presents:

LEYA
+ Vanessa Bedoret
Friday 23rd May
The Flying Duck
18+

LEYA, the avant-pop duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and vocalist/violinist Adam Markiewicz, have defied expectations throughout their career, obtaining a singular, legendary status for their unmistakably beautiful and disturbing work. Through two studio albums, two EPs, a mixtape, a porn, and a flurry of collaborations, they have traced almost every genre of contemporary music. The duo’s long list of cohorts includes Eartheater, Actress, Ecco2K, Brooke Candy (via PornHub), Sega Bodega, Varg2TM, claire rousay, Okay Kaya, and many more. 

***

LEYA, the avant-pop duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and vocalist/violinist Adam Markiewicz, has long inhabited a beguiling world, blending medieval-sounding origins with modern folk, classical, and more. From deep roots in the NYC underground to international recognition as a crossover force, their work has found its way into spaces ranging from fashion runways to Pornhub, and beyond.

The basis of LEYA is the unique tuning system of the harp, designed by Donovan for the project, which pairs with the distinctly wide, operatic singing range of Markiewicz, and further blends with his processed violin tones. The template for this sound is found on their 2018 debut The Fool and further developed on their 2020 breakthrough follow-up Flood Dream, which The New York Times called “the auditory equivalent of awakening in the fog of a bad dream only to discover you’re still trapped in the nightmare.” This sense of unease has become a distinctive tone for the project, a collision of beauty and calamity that both soothes and disturbs its listeners.

LEYA’s distinctive sound has drawn collaborative attention from artists across genres and mediums. Following the release of their very first single in 2018, they were approached by rapper Brooke Candy to provide scoring and live acting for her adult film I Love You, which was produced by Pornhub for its Visionaries' Directors Series, and featured sound design by Sega Bodega. After an initial feature on The Fool, LEYA followed with 2019’s collaborative EP Angel Lust with Eartheater, with whom they have continued a close working relationship. Following the release of Flood Dream LEYA released remixes with Actress, Drew McDowall (Coil/Psychic TV), and Christina Vantzou, and an additional single with Liturgy. In 2022, they unveiled a fully collaborative mixtape, Eyeline, which featured nine guests. Additional notable musical collaborations include Ecco2K, Chanel Beads, Varg2TM, Julie Byrne, Okay Kaya, Claire Rousay, Martha Skye Murphy, Deli Girls, James K, and many others. LEYA have also worked with fashion designers Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein x i-D, Acne Studios, Elena Velez, HoodbyAir, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, and many more, video artists including Charles Atlas, choreographers including Loni Landon, and a myriad of others in varying modes of performance, scoring, and installations.

LEYA’s latest full-length release, I Forget Everything, marks their first return to the studio since 2022’s Eyeline. It is their first solo record containing elements of electronic production, sourcing from home-recorded to high-fidelity sounds, tracing the bounds of new experiments, while remaining rooted in harp, strings, and voice as the sole source of these sounds. The work regards a “haven scorned,” shifting in perspective between the larger world and one that is private, even imagined. A reaction to calamity, it imagines that abandonment is necessary. The release will usher in a new era of work for a duo already known for the unexpected.

Pop Mutations presents:
Sorry Girls
+ Special Guests
Thursday 22nd May
The Glad Cafe
18+

Montreal’s fever dream pop duo, Sorry Girls, returns with their third album Dreamwalker out via Arbutus Records. Their eccentric blend of nostalgic 70s power ballads and 80s kitsch breaks through new thresholds, dismantling futile illusions to brave the cold and ask what lies ahead.

Is a love interest a bridge or a tightrope? When does the desire for a fantasy slip into a twisted fate? Dreamwalker is a time capsule of being stuck in a transitional space—an emotional in-between filled with longing and tension. You’re aware of where you want to go, but you’re caught between desire and reality. Dreamwalker is deliberate, self-aware and ironically self-effacing. Trapped in the reflection of the window, you just need to slide the handles to get to the other side.
Shifting from their more structured pop influences and drawing inspiration from Fleetwood Mac and The Blue Nile’s glittery production style, the band set up camp at Montreal’s Two Sisters Recording Studio. With an emphasis on collaboration, swift artistic decisions and a self-imposed time constraint, Sorry Girls fostered a spontaneous, atmospheric sound that stayed true to the essence of the record.
The lyricism toys with idyllic visions of love objects, fantasies of future utopias, and the obsessive edging for an ease and newness to sweep in. With a playful sonic palette, the emotional confusion is conflated with a swimming sense of lucidity.  
Washy production techniques and punchy bass lines pair with softer piano trills and gentle drums, recreating the lyrical push-pull between two worlds. The organic elements represent the honest feelings—while the synth layers represent the dreams, the idealized version of the future, the fantasy world that is out of reach.
“There’s beauty in a breakdown. Trying to find acceptance in things that aren't complete or final, healing the part of myself that believes that it can look that way. Living inside that world, and using that world to create the next world.” says Heather.

The potential of life choices dangle outside the window. Restless and ambiguous feelings draw us to the wrong pleasures. What leads to the most fruitful turn, but the vulnerable singing voice that knows the way to the right place.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Earth Tongue
+ Special Guests
Sunday 18th May
The Old Hairdresser's
18+

Earth Tongue is a heavy psych rock two-piece from Wellington, New Zealand. Guitarist Gussie Larkin is a master of the fuzz-smothered riff, and along with Ezra Simons’ off-kilter drumming, they’ve been sending punters into transcendental states since their emergence in 2016. Their debut
album Floating Being (Stolen Body Records, 2019) quickly became an underground hit, seeing them embark on multiple tours across Australasia and Europe in the years since its release. Along the way they’ve picked up high praise from BBC Radio6, Bandcamp and headbangers all over the world.

After touring with American multi-instrumentalist Ty Segall, the duo caught the attention of iconic Los Angeles based rock' n' roll label In The Red Records - an imprint that has released albums from the likes of Thee Oh Sees, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Wand and Ty Segall himself. In The Red
promptly signed them, and released their second album Great Haunting in June 2024. Written during the pandemic lockdown era while holed up binging on 1970’s and 80’s horror movies, the nine-track album is a doom-soaked overload — conjuring vast sonics from just guitar, drums and yowls.

Earth Tongue have hit the road time and time again, playing over 50 shows throughout Europe and the UK in 2024 and sharing stages with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, IDLES, Ty Segall, Acid King, Brant Bjork and Kikagaku Moyo. Earth Tongue’s live show is a powerful, cult-like experience - the perfect mix of throw-your-horns-up heavy, and can’t-stop-listening catchy. Their third studio
album is set for release in September 2025.