Porridge Radio - Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky (Forest Green) - VINYL LP

After a decade making the most of improvised recording spaces set in warehouses, trailers and lofts, Japanese Breakfast's fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), marks the band's first proper studio . Produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills, the record sees front-woman and songwriter Michelle Zauner pull back from the bright extroversion that defined it's predecessor Jubilee to examine the darker waves that roil within, the moody, fecund field of melancholy, long held to be the psychic state of poets on the verge of inspiration. The result is an artistic statement of purpose a mature, intricate, contemplative work that conjures the romantic thrill of a gothic novel.For Melancholy Brunettes follows a transformative period in Zauner's life during which her 2x GRAMMY nominated breakthrough album Jubilee and her bestselling memoir Crying In H Mart catapulted her into the cultural mainstream, delivering on her deepest artistic ambitions. Reflecting on that success, Zauner came to appreciate the irony of desire, which so often commingles bliss and doom. InchI felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,Inch she says. InchI was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going I was going to die.InchThe plight of Icarus and other such condemned ones lends For Melancholy Brunettes it's most persistent theme, the perils of desire. Like light dispersed, it's spectral parts take the album's characters through cycles of temptation, transgression and retribution. On InchOrlando in LoveInch - a riff on John Cheever's riff on Orlando Innamorato, an unfinished epic made up of 68 ½ cantos by the Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo - the hero is a well meaning poet who parks his Winnebago by the sea and falls victim to a siren's call, his 69th canto (even in the lofty realm of classical myth Zauner has a soft spot for innuendo). InchHoney WaterInch plum

When Porridge Radio's Dana Margolin, one of the most vital new voices in rock, began to consider the themes of their new album, three vivid words emerged joy, fear and endlessness. She had called the band's third full-length, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, an image that's partly inspired by a collage by the surrealist artist Eileen Agar, and evokes the ducks and dives, slippery slopes and existential angst of life. But Dana was also drawn to the story of Jacob's Ladder from the Old Testament which, Inchsymbolises the ups and downs of human life, of virtue and sin,Inch she explains. This idea that no one emotional state is binary came like a lightning bolt. InchWithin this album the feelings of joy, fear and endlessness coexist together,Inch says Dana. That mix of emotions has defined Porridge Radio's past two years to say the least. It's a strange sensation, becoming a breakthrough band who are breathlessly championed by every major music site, without being able to experience any of it in the real world. When they released their 2020 album Every Bad, they were about to fly to South By Southwest, support Car Seat Headrest across the States, and then tear up the festival circuit back home. But it was all cancelled due to the pandemic. In spite of that, they've managed to become one of the UK's most thrilling acts, from DIY darlings to a Mercury-nominated tour de force in the space of less than a year. Perhaps that's because their barbed wit, lacerating intensity and potent blend of art-rock, indie-pop and post-punk sounds like little else around. For Dana and drummer Sam Yardley, keyboardist Georgie Stott and bassist Maddie Ryall - who met in Brighton and formed a band in 2014 - global recognition had been a long time coming, after years of booking their own tours and self-releasing their music. But in some ways, Dana welcomed the pause. She had been str

Porridge Radio grew out of Dana Margolin's bedroom, where she started making music in private. Living in the seaside town of Brighton, she recorded songs and slowly started playing them at open mic nights to rooms of old men who stared at her quietly as she screamed in their faces. Though she eventually grew out of them, for Margolin these open mic nights unlocked a love of performing and songwriting, as well as a new way to express herself. She decided to form a band through which to channel it all, and be noisier while she was at it - so Porridge Radio was born. Inspired by interpersonal relationships, her environment - in particular the sea - and her growing friendships with her new bandmates (bassist Maddie Ryall, keyboardist Georgie Stott, and drummer Sam Yardley) Margolin's distinctive, indie-pop-but-make-it-existentialist style soon started to crystallise. Quickly, the band self-released a load of demos and a garden-shed-recorded collection on Memorials of Distinction, while tireless touring cemented their firm reputation as one of UK DIY's most beloved and compelling live bands. As the band's sound - bright pop-rock instrumentation blended with Margolin's tender, open-ended lyrics - has developed and refined, Porridge Radio have also received enthusiastic radio airplay on the BBC, Radio X and more. Now, they are taking that development a step further, as they put out their tag debut, Every Bad Album Tracks 1. Born Confused 2. Sweet 3. Don't Ask Me Twice 4. Long 5. Nephews 6. Pop Song 7. Give/Take 8. Lilac 9. Circling 10. (Something) 11. Homecoming Song