The Illness hail from the North of England. Based primarily in York and Liverpool they are a band who thrive on collaboration across various cities and continents. Their first 12″ single ‘Descending G/ Phrases Redacted’ was a case in point. Released during the Covid lockdown of 2020 it featured the combined talents of Pavement / Silver Jews members Steve West and Bob Nastanovich. ‘Descending G’ appeared on these pages as part of our Video of the Week in July of that year and also received some heavy rotation from Marc Riley on BBC Radio 6 Music before making it onto his end of year “best of” list.
Now The Illness are back. They will release their follow-up recording, the Summerase EP this Friday, the 23rd of June on 12” vinyl via the independent label, Sea Records.
Tracklist:
I. Everybody Knows That I’m A Fool
2. Alone/Aline
3. Was A Quarrelsome Youth
4. Summerase
The quadruple A side Summersae EP features multiple contributors including the Liverpudlian multi-instrumentalist songwriter, Laura J. Martin and the Mancunian composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist dbh amongst many others. Each track is essentially played by a completely different line-up, something which serves to better represent the band’s varying influences, though the sound is always built around the same core four-piece band to maintain a consistent thread.
Live dates:
June 25 – Kazamier Stockroom, Liverpool
June 30 – The Crescent, York (EP launch show)
You can listen to ‘Alone/Aline’ below. Accompanying video by Christian Debney.
