Ladylike

Yampy Promotions presents ladylike + guests.

Brighton's ladylike inhabit a particular kind of quiet. The candlelight kind. Natural, controlled, and brimming with a subtle euphoria. Delicately treading the tightrope between folk and post-rock, their sound rolls and retreats. Like an ocean's patient yet pervasive flaking of landscapes, ladylike tracks herald in a gentle metamorphosis that speaks to renewal, growth and repair. Formed from friendships that predate the band itself, the quartet - Georgia Butler (vocals, guitar), Spencer Withey (vocals, guitar, synth), James Ely (drums), and Archie Sagers (six-string bass) serve their folk rare: raw and pastoral, but with a side of textural, atmospheric builds directly wired into the tensions of the modern world. It's a formula that has gained them slots at Green Man; Left Of The Dial; The Great Escape; and Dot To Dot, plus supports with Ugly, Mary in the Junkyard and Lime Garden. Early champions at radio and press include KEXP, BBC 6 Music, Apple 1, Radio X, DIY, So Young, and Rough Trade.

After soft-launching the idea of starting a project together at End of the Road, the band's initial practices took place in a recital room on a brutalist university campus. A setting that, on the surface, is wildly at odds with the rural authenticity of their sound. Pause and look, however, and the campus may have seeped its way into the architectural structures of their songs, with an emphasis on functionality, honesty, and the incorporation of rougher textures and exposed materials. The alchemy lies in the band's ability to marry those spaces, and when raw elements meet modernity, they absolutely soar. "We've now upgraded to a small, warm and sticky shared practice space that has a lingering smell of yeast from the bakery next door." divulges Georgia. Despite this, their songs still claim room to inhale and exhale, to meander, and shake loose the dammed-up anomie of modern living with a gentle gut-punch of glorious folk-tinged rapture.

Newly signed to indie heavyweights Heist or Hit(Her's, Westside Cowboy, Nature TV), The band's forthcoming debut EP 'It's a Pleasure of Mine Just to Know That You're Fine', was recorded with producer Ali Chant (Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius, PJ Harvey). It captures the quiet urgency that has always been ladylike's hallmark. Across four tracks, they explore cycles of re-growth, renewal, and the beauty of persistence, finding poetry in English idioms and the banality of the mundane. "Recording with Ali was a dream for us!! Working with an established producer, who we were all fans of, was quite a big step up from being a self-produced band. That week in July was a really vital experience for us. We can be quite insular as a band, so introducing another person into our world was quite nerve-racking and brought about a slight air of pressure, which was needed." admit the band. "We decided to record most of the EP live, so Ali set us all up in corners of his studio (which is one room) and we just played through the songs."

'Burning Heather / Burning Heather Continued' are movements taken from a once full-length song that introduce the various sections of the EP. "The idea of the song was really based around the concept of restarting. 'Burning Heather' was a lyric that just sort of came up. Later, when researching, I learnt that farmers burn heather with controlled fires to encourage new growth. That felt perfectly fitting to me," shares Georgia. This theme is explored further in the next cut, 'Rome (in progress)'.Thetrance-inducingpluck of a folkloric nylon string guitar is crosscut with a complex rhythmic hook of drums and bass. As if caroline slide tackled Nick Drake.Taking inspiration from the saying 'Rome wasn't built in a day' the track is about the discovery that building a new life isn't as smooth sailing as you may think, but that's okay. 'Mountains' builds out from an electric guitar riff, swelling with watercolour vocals and post-rock toplines trembling with delay. Almost without warning, the track rears up off all fours and stands tall, like the sonic embodiment of a cryptid encounter. "Lyrically, this track is a little more character-based." Shares Georgia. "It's a story about ridding oneself of an obsession or habit." Intricately constructed arrangements executed with effortless, vivid panache is the order of the day across the EP, enter'Fresh Linen',the band's seven-minute magnum opus which swells and deflates with a quiet/loud dynamic that climbs up and down the gears more times than a rally driver and takes as many turns."We're constantly writing and rewriting what we play live. Creation is a long, methodical process of constant tweaking, performing and arranging until we arrive at something we're really proud of." Good things come to those who wait! The main chord progression in 'Sour Carol, I' glistens with the sort of crystalline beauty usually reserved for Sigur Rós. Lyrically, the verses are about someone confiding in you with a personal issue. The main line 'it's a pleasure of mine, just to know you're fine' a reminder that sometimes it's a privilege to know that someone is okay. Not great, or perfect. Just fine.

In conversation, ladylike are warm and self-effacing. Where would they go of they were invisible?A bank vault or a deli. Either way, stuff is getting stolen. They couldn't live without their deck of cards, "they get us through a lot!" No strangers to the scene, the music industry came knocking early for this group of friends, but they held off the attention with an outlaw intelligence, waiting until the time was right and their vision finally formed. "We're like a slow-burning candle that you can't quite let die; it just consistently keeps coming back and occasionally flickers brighter or faster."