Nightshift release their forthcoming album Zöe at the end of next February. Today we debut the album’s lead single ‘Make Kin’, hypnotic and deconstructed post punk framed in cinematic instrumentals of pounding drums and bass and slithering clarinets, riven with spoken word polemic rustles with an unsettled feeling and searching for fragments to reassemble amongst the rubble of 2020
The band is made up of visual artist Eothen Stearn (2 Ply), Chris White (Spinning Coin), Georgia Harris and Andrew Doig (Robert Sotelo) and David Campbell (ex-I’m Being Good!). This is their first release with a label – their first full-length was self released on cassette earlier in 2020.
Nightshift formed in 2019 in the ecosystem of Glasgow’s current indie scene. The city’s fertile and creative group of musicians have been committed to pushing the boundaries of and blurring the lines between DIY, punk, experimentalism and indie pop for decades now; a home to bands like Shopping, Vital Idles, Current Affairs, Still House Plants, Richard Youngs and Happy Meals as well as forebears like Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub & Yummy Fur.
Nightshift slot right in with all mentioned, featuring members from current indie stalwarts Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo. Initially formed by guitarist David Campbell and bassist Andrew Doig as a “No Wave/No New York/early Sonic Youth/This Heat-esque” group, the addition of Eothen Stearn (keyboards/vocals) & Chris White (drums) instantaneously transformed their approach (guitarist/vocalist/clarinetist Georgia Harris joined as the band was writing “Zöe”).
The band self-released a full-length cassette on CUSP Recordings in early 2020, laying the foundation of their sound; hypnotic, melodic, understated indie post-punk with hooks that stick around long after you’ve heard them. “Zöe” is the band’s newest effort, and first for Trouble In Mind.
Unlike the band’s previous album, the songs on “Zöe” weren’t conceived live in the band’s practice space, but rather pieced together and recorded remotely during quarantine lockdown, with each member composing or improvising their parts in homes/home studios, layering ideas over loops someone made and passing it on.
The isolation actually allowed for an openness and creativity to flow and many of the songs took on radically different forms from when they were originally envisioned.
Vocalist & primary lyricist Eothen Stearn says “The process of writing these songs separately during lockdown was a kind of exquisite corpse – I liked this gesticulation of reaching out to one another and responding. Building up the next layer and passing it on.”
