Track Of The Day: Nikki & The Waves – ‘The Phone Song’

Having recently been recommended Manchester band Nikki & The Waves by Chester trio Peaness when interviewing them for our last radio show on Soho Radio, I was excited to hear that they’ll be releasing a new EP in June. Having originally formed in Liverpool, the band have played esteemed venues such as The Cavern Club and charmed audiences at Isle Of Wight festival and Sound City, and look set to bring their joyous energy across the country throughout 2022.

Taken from the upcoming EP, new single ‘The Phone Song‘ instantly hits you with its jangly, quirky energy. Propelled by an uplifting, vibrant groove, it flows with fizzing hooks and Nikki’s lush, sugar-sweet vocals, as voicemails from those closest to the band – spanning Hong Kong to America – are interwoven into the funk-fuelled musicality. Oozing a blissful, shimmering allure – with shades of an eclectic array of influences, from early hip-hop to Lily Allen – it comes complete with swooping trombone solos, sparkling harmonies and a relatable witty lyricism, showcasing all there is to love about Nikki & The Waves. The perfect effervescent bank holiday jam to shimmy along to in the blazing sunshine (we can hope…).

Produced by Joel Pratchett (The Orielles, King Krule), songs to play tennis to – the upcoming EP from Nikki & The Waves – is set for release on 17th June.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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Introducing Interview: Gabi Garbutt

Having received acclaim from the likes of Steve LaMacq at BBC 6Music and shared stages with legends such as The Libertines, London-based ‘punk-poet’ Gabi Garbutt has now announced the release of their second album via lovely label Trapped Animal Records.

Taken from the album, latest single ‘Never Never‘ showcases Garbutt’s knack for creating instantly catchy indie-pop anthems. With a soulful, impassioned energy propelling the jangling, uplifting musicality, it’s an emotionally-raw, fiercely gritty earworm, leaving you longing to hear more.

We caught up with Gabi to find out all about the new single, upcoming album, their thoughts on the industry, and what inspires them most… Have a read!

Hi Gabi Garbutt! Welcome to Get In her Ears? Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi Mari! I’m a half-Chilean singer songwriter from London, then Gloucester, then London, writing mainly lyrical soul punk songs.

Are you able to tell us a bit about how you initially started creating music?
The first band I was totally obsessed with were Green Day. I remember for my twelfth birthday being taken by my mum and dad to see Green Day at a festival in Nottingham. Iggy Pop was the support act and I was right up there in the mosh pit being thrown around, the crowd howling around me… My baptism by fire. That’s when I discovered rock and roll. From there, there was no going back. Bowling around school with Clash City Rockers tipexxed to the back of my school jacket. Next birthday my mum and dad bought me a Squire Strat and soon after I started learning songs. When I was in my mid-teens I used to borrow my sister’s acoustic and busk in town at the weekends, then spend that money on buying records. Another watershed moment was when I was sixteen – my English teacher lent me his copy of Patti Smith’s Horses, and hearing how she merged poetic lyrics with punk, I realised that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I started writing songs and when I moved back to London when I was 18 I started my first band.

I love your uplifting, colourful sounds, but who would you say are you main musical influences?
Thanks! Ezra Furman and Patti Smith are two of my main influences – that lyrical urgency fuelled by euphoric punk energy is something I really aspire to. I love a lot of Motown and Stax soul artists and they inspire a lot of the upbeat brassy sounds. Julian Casablancas’ band The Voidz are really exciting, totally original wild pop verging on chaos, and they’ve inspired the more electronic songs on the record. Nina Simone is a big inspiration; I really admire her fearlessness and conviction, and how she turned her vast musical vocabulary into really raw and emotionally charged songs. I’m a huge fan of Valerie June, particularly her latest album Prescription for Dreamers, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before, totally stratospheric soul. I’ve got it on repeat in the tour van and often put it on before we go on stage. It’s a totally energising, mind expanding record that at the same time gets me in a calm and collected state. Lyrical masters like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed are big inspirations too.

You’ve recently released your single ‘Never Never’, taken from your upcoming album Cockerel, which is out in May. Are you able to tell us a bit about the album? Are there any particular themes running throughout it?
This record is musically exploratory. It’s got a restless energy and considered sincerity too. There are lone cries and there is sorrow shared. There’s also a celebration of the beauty of existence and the power of human connection. The music takes twists and turns that echo the shifting emotional landscape of the lyrics, but not quite in step. There’s euphoria where there’s raging sadness, otherworldly sounds when the lyrics run closest to the beating heart, but I feel it’s more interesting that way.

How have you found recording and promoting an album during these strange times?
In 2020 we had a bunch of tours and festivals planned that were cancelled. It meant that I had more time to work on writing this album and as soon as rehearsal studios opened up, we started playing these songs as a band. We recorded the album in Spring 2021 but because of the vinyl backlog, it didn’t make sense to release it in a rush. The timing has worked out quite well as we’re doing a fair bit of touring at the moment in the build up to the album release in May. I really thought that all we’d been building would disintegrate during the lockdown, so I’m really happy that the adventure’s continuing.

Do you feel much has changed over the last few years in the music industry’s treatment of female and non-binary artists? 
I do think things have changed. There are still assumptions about females not writing their own songs, crafting the arrangements or being involved in production, which is incredibly frustrating, but luckily I work with a progressive bunch of guys. The label we’re signed to – Trapped Animal Records – are really excellent at nurturing female and non-binary artists, I highly recommend people check out their roster. I was a total tomboy when I was a kid, I remember a girl at school throwing her shoes at me when I was five, and when the teacher asked her why she did it, the girl said it’s because I had said I wanted to be a boy. I’ve always been androgynous and remember hearing the word gender-fluid a few years ago and realising how much that resonated with me. The freedom of expression that music encourages means that the process of creation itself reveals things about ourselves. It also means musicians are perfectly placed to lead the way in starting new conversations, changing perceptions. Artists like Ezra Furman, who recently came out as a trans mum, and consistently promotes trans joy – that’s really powerful, I admire her so much. It just shows the role our musical heroes have in pulling us all into the future.

You’ve previously supported infamous indie acts such as The Libertines – how was this experience for you? And has there been a particular gig you’ve played that stands out as a highlight? 
I’ve been a huge fan of The Libertines since my early teens, so it’s been a brilliant experience. We joined them on a couple of dates of their recent tour – Kentish Town Forum was a highlight, but back in 2019 playing Paris L’Olympia then racing across Germany playing Cologne, Munch and Berlin with them was some of the best fun I think I might ever have had.

As we’re a new music focused site, are there any other upcoming artists or bands you’re loving right now that you’d recommend we check out?
Label mates Jemma Freeman & The Cosmic Something are ferocious, one of the best bands around. I’d also recommend Catherine Rudie who’s Glasgow based, a total one of a kind making otherworldly folk. Veronica Bianqui, who creates garage soul stateside, Sasha & The Shades make raw bluesy rock n’ roll, and Magda Goncalves is a brilliant London based r’n’b/ soul singer writer. A lot of the acts that come out of the Lantern Society, a singer-songwriter night in Clerkenwell are really ace too… Sam Nicholson (who also plays with Jemma Freeman), Jeremy Tuplin, The Violet Hum, Dead Writers, Peter Doolan, Chris Brambley, Gabriel Moreno to name a few. My cousin Paula Arismendi and my brother Leo Garbutt are really talented musicians and songwriters. Also shout out to Real(s), our bass player’s band and Hackles, our drummer’s other band who are both well worth checking out. 

In addition to the album release, what does the rest of the year have in store for you?
We’ve got a few more U.K tour dates coming up with Big Country and I’m going to be playing a couple of acoustic dates in New York, including Rockwood Music Hall on 29th April. In the summer we’ve got a few German dates booked and will be looking to tie this in with a few other dates on the continent and some more U.K tour dates. I’ve also started writing and demoing the third record so I’ll be working hard at that, hopefully recording it by the end of the year!

Massive thanks to Gabi for answering our questions!


Cockerel, the upcoming album from Gabi Garbutt, is set for release on 20th May via Trapped Animal Records.

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Track Of The Day: KIN – ‘The Runaways’

Having previously charmed our ears with the sounds of ‘L.O.V.E’ and ‘Sharing Light’, and with over 310,000k streams of their songs on Spotify, London trio Grace, Ritu and Adam – aka KIN – have now shared another ambient new single.

Oozing a glistening, emotion-strewn splendour, ‘The Runaways‘ reflects on the mixed feelings of leaving a settled life and started afresh somewhere new. As the distinctive celestial allure of Grace’s vocals flows alongside chiming hooks and a shimmering energy, it’ll gently tug at the heartstrings with its poignant lyricism and a heartfelt ethereal majesty. Taking the listener on a mystical adventure, it’ll immerse you in a sparkling sense of romanticism, creating a stirring ode to finding a sense of belonging – a feeling of being home, not necessarily in a place, but in a person who you feel a deep connection with; a sentiment depicted beautifully in the accompanying self-directed video. With an exquisite emotive charm and captivating musicality with shades of The XX, ‘The Runaways’ is a perfect slice of blissful alt-pop that’ll cast you under its sparkling spell on first listen.

Produced by Josh Tyrell (Lana Del Rey, Mark Ronson), ‘The Runaways’ is out now via 3tone Music.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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Track Of The Day: Peaness – ‘What’s The Use?’

Originally planned for release in summer 2020, ‘What’s The Use?‘ is the latest single from Chester trio Peaness, taken from their debut album due out in 2022.

It drops in bright and makes its statement immediately: What’s the use? Throughout, the track is upbeat and fun, with bouncy strings, a fast beat and cheery-sounding vocals. It’s an addictive and absorbing sound that is impossible not to bop along with.

The lyrics, on the other hand, do not share the same sense of limitless joy. Instead, they go into quite a bit of detail about how it feels to be thoroughly depressed. The song acutely describes the feeling of a sigh that carries the weight of the world in it. The refrain “Can I just stay in bed?” repeats and repeats until you can’t escape the utter lack of motivation to get up and engage with the world. Finally, the eponymous “what’s the use?” carries the overwhelming feeling of all the inescapable pressure that won’t leave you be, even when you do manage to drag yourself out of bed.

I absolutely adore the juxtaposition of the two massively contrasting styles between the music and the lyrics, it’s so delightfully nihilistic. It encapsulates a relatable sense of freedom that comes with accepting that, actually yeah, things are pointless sometimes.

The song has been released alongside a video compiled of phone footage of various shenanigans shot on the band’s previous tours. It matches the music in terms of its fast pacing and general sense of joy, and adds another layer of complexity to the content. You see the band on their adventures, in nice restaurants, at landmarks, at funfairs, playing gigs, practicing, stroking their pets. It feels like an immensely powerful comment about what depression can look like, about how you can seem like you’re living your best life while all your lowest feelings are still very much present.

You can feel how the past eighteen months have shaped the song. Even without the context of the pandemic, the full piece feels incredibly meaningful. When you add in the global trauma we all share right now, it becomes all the more powerful, as the clips and music become happy memories experienced from that all-consuming bed in the lyrics.

‘What’s The Use?’ is a brilliantly constructed song and so, so catchy. The 2022 album can’t come soon enough.

‘What’s The Use?’ is out now via the band’s own label, Totally Snick Records. Catch them live at their biggest ever London headline show at Oslo on 18th November. Tickets here.

Kirstie Summers
@ActuallyKurt

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