Shall we take a little trip to Essex? It’s east of London but it’s definitely not east London, the land of Blur, Depeche Mode, The Prodigy, Dr Feelgood, wheeler-dealers and dodgy geezers, Maldon sea salt, blokes who wash their Ford Mondeos religiously every Sunday morning, Tiptree jam, Grayson Perry, nosey neighbours, rowdy clubs, Joey Essex, Dermot O’Leary, Squarepusher, Basildon Man, a place where ring road towns lazily bleed into beautiful stretches of countryside underneath widescreen skies. It’s down the A12 and to the birthplace of radio that we’re headed. Keep going past Brentwood and all its TOWIE tanning beds and take a left into Chelmsford, the home of RAT BOY. After a decade of global tours as far afield as China, Japan and the US, a period that has included diversions into hip-hop, US-influenced ska-punk, RAT BOY have come back to base. Their excellent new record ‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ is all about returning to their roots.
guccihighwaters’ third album for Epitaph, DEATH BY DESIRE is his boldest and most adventurous record to date—a result of the project’s mastermind Morgan Murphy taking the creative wheel and hitting the gas at 100 MPH, putting every element of his musical acumen into these 12 songs. After releasing joke’s on you in 2021—as well as the extensive touring that followed—Murphy felt creatively unsure of where to go next. ”I was in a standstill,” he explains. “I was putting out a lot of singles and doing sessions with producers and songwriters, and I wasn’t connecting with what I was making.” Instead of throwing in the towel, Murphy got to work on writing and self-producing the luxurious alternative pop sound that would become DEATH BY DESIRE. “I locked myself in the studio every day and really just focused on reinventing myself,” he recalls. “I was making something that was untouched by anyone else. I knew it was gonna be a hard task, but it was also the only way for me to feel like I accomplished something that I love.”