THEAtely, IT Seems London's Experimental Rock Scene is locked in a love affair with maximalism. Black Country, New Road Have Pivotted from the Acerbic Post-Punk of Their First Album to the Sprawling Pastoralism of Joanna Newsom or Arcade Fire; Caroline make post-rock as an eight piece with its own complete string section. With their Debut Ep 'Plan 75', The Orchestra (for now) have distilled this sound Into ents mons essential form: sonically manifesting the neuroses that couus Only Develop from Living in A City Like London.
Getting Their Start in Cult Venues Like the Windmill and the George Tavern, The Orchestra (for now) have become notorious for their Hypnot after Live Show. The band Have Speent Two Years Gigging Around This Scene – Even Playing with Black Midi in Their Final Windmill Gig. All Seven Members Are So Familiar with Each Other That Thry Navigate Through Swells and Troughs of Their Complex Sound With The Coordination of A Military Operation. 'Plan 75', AS Guitaists Bill Bickerstaff and Neil Thompson Tell NmeIs Not Only Their Attept to “Capture A Particular Moment in the Studio”, but a Snapshot of Their Life in Contemporary London.
Although Most of the band are not from the City, The EP Reflects a Specific London Anxiety THat Bickerstaff Articulates as Intense Neurosis, Explaining That He and Frontman/Songwriter Joe Scarisbrick “Feel Quite Anxious about Getting Older, Being Left in The Dirt. Think in 'Plan' 75 ', The Neurotic Twising and Turning of the Songs and the Fullness of Them was a Syptom of That. “
“We are Just People Living in The Here and Now, We're Going to Write Honestly and Be Honest, Musically,” Thompson Adds. “And that means writing songs that are about the outtrainous rent in London, event IF it Doesn'T Say So Explicitly in the Lyrics.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubxl2slfxpa
The London of 'Plan 75' is a Constant Churning High-Strung Mess, where to be Young is to be entangled with a particular Kind of existential anxiety. “One Thing We've all Got in Common in the band is we've all met by being in London, Studying There, Most of US Doing Arts Degrees,” Thompson Explains. “Being in the capital, There's so much competition Around. You desperately Want to be resering to the surface of it all, and in order to do that, there's a naivety in the way that we've written the songs: It's so in-your-face and maximalist, and the Think it probably has some of that of that Youthfulness in Us. “
AS Such, The Band Describes Their Sound As “London Prog”; A reflection of the different cultural influences of the city, blending genres as disparate as post-punk and jazz. But in Spite of Emerging from A Scene Most Closely Associated With The Angular, Politically-Charged Post Punk of “Crankwave”, BickersTaff Says Their Sound is Rather at Reflection of the City's “Appetite for a Proggy Kind of Sound.”
“Our songs are quite carefully crafted,” He adds. “There's a Borderline Unhealthy Obsession Over Details in The way that We Write. I Think That Kind of Critical Neurosis Seems to Be in At the Moment.”
“London prog” can therefore be understood as the inevitable reaction to crankwave, instead favouring large bands with upwards of six members and institution Considered UNTRADITIONAL Within the rock genre, such as violin or clarinet. Decidedly More Art Rock This Punk Rock, The Politics of London Prog Are Far More Impicit, Layered Under Storytelling in Manner Akin to an Autofurational Novel.
“There's a Borderline Unhealthy Obsession Over Details in The way that We Write. I Think That Kind of Critical Neurosis Seems to Be in At the Moment” – Bill BickersTAFF
Although a Sonic Reflection of the City and the Scene It Emerged from, 'Plan 75' Reflects This Darkly Neurotic Version of London Most Deeply in Its Lyrical Content. “There's Obviously a Lot of Pop Culture in The Lyrics, Placed very intentional to Evoke a Certain feeling,” Thompson Explains. 'Plan 75' Seemingly exist in Its Own Self-Contained World, One Which Might Be Plotted Against in Physical Map of London Reference by Reference. While There's Obvious Comparisons to Be Found in Isaac Wood-Ara Black Country, New Road, Scarisbrick Instead Produces A scaring Critique of the Emptiness of at Contemporary Cultural Life Which Perpetuary Slides Intreformation Middle Ground.
NO ONE IS SPARED, From Middle Class Parents Who Read Zadie Smith and Send Their Children to all the Right Schools in 'Escape From New York' To the Mid-Pandemic Schmaltz of Fred Again's 'We've Lost Dancing,' The Lyrics Inverted in 'Wake Robin' To State Instead That “We've Lost Everything“. Bickerstaff elaborates on the Nature of this emptine with his own wery pop culture reference:” Modern life is always aware bit rubbish. “
'Plan 75' Also Casts An Equally Paranoid Glare on a World where the Internet Has Become An omnipresent Harbinger of austerity-Induced Hyperoptimisation. Bickerstaff Calls This Brave New World “Such a Fast Moving Ride,” with the lyrics Emerging in Parallel to “Lots of Very Late, Intense Conversations About How Fucked We Were, How We'd Mission Our Stop, So to Speak.” Scarisbrick's tendency to link Death and the digital – be It the Murder of An Onlyfans Model in 'The strip' or capuring casualties on brat in 'wake robin' – is a further reflection of the world Young People Must now navigated; One Where More and More Effort is required for Ever-Diminishing Slices of the Same Pie.
Bickerstaff Undersands The Urge To Create in This Environment As a Double-Edged Sword. “I Think You Always Feel Like You're Chasing Your Shadow A Bit,” He Explains. “You Always Feel Like You're Chasing Some Kind of Grander Version of You, A Version That is bigger Than life.” And Yet, London is Somehow Both a Source of Creative Neurosis And Also Central to the Chase Itself. When the band I decide to move to the city, supposedly in a bid to hit the big time, Thompson Admits, “I had no intention of that when i moled here.”
But bickerstaff cheerfully disagreees: “I did. We want to be big. We want to be remembered.”
The orchestra (for now) 's ep' plans 75 'is out march 28