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On their transportive second album, ‘The Warping’, Walt Disco fearlessly push the boundaries of genre into thrilling new realms. The Glaswegian art-pop alchemists reveal the strange magic behind their most ambitious and immersive work yet. Find out more with our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature.
Words: Ciaran Picker.
Photos: Izzy Leach.
Walt Disco are in constant transformation, always seeking out the most effervescent and unexpected way to express themselves. After re-emerging in January with the Latin-jazz vibes of ‘Pearl’, funk-rock anthem ‘You Make Me Feel So Dumb’, and heartfelt soul-bearer ‘Jocelyn’, the Glaswegian five-piece are back with new track, ‘Come Undone’, one that not only puts the ‘fun’ in ‘funk’, but also carries with it the trademark introspection that they so elegantly weave into their work.
Set in a world of decadence and debauchery, ‘Come Undone’ represents a weird contradiction within us all, one which allows us to tell total strangers our deepest secrets. “Both me and [co-lyricist] Jack were single when we wrote the track,” lead singer Jocelyn reveals, “and when you’re single, the best conversations you have are with people you might have one-night stands with or friends of friends. I didn’t have any one person in mind, but I know there have been times when I’ve been like, ‘Why have I told you all of this stuff about my life?’ about two hours into a party!”
‘Come Undone’ illuminates yet another side to the band, one that sees them channel ‘Station to Station’-era Bowie, replete with jazz-funk basslines, disco backing vocals, and a black-and-white German Expressionist video that the Starman himself would be proud of. And, just like Bowie, it’s a song that’s not as straightforward as it sounds.
“We knew it was the most accessible track on the album when we wrote it,’” Jocelyn states, “but we still tried to keep it from being too obvious. When [guitarist] Finley was writing his part, we were all like, ‘Throw the evil Deftones chord in there!’, just so it wasn’t a super clean, disco guitar line.”
These tiny nods to disparate genres are just one of many surprises that appear across their second record, ‘The Warping’, out this spring via Lucky Number Records. As the title may suggest, the band’s determination to keep the listener guessing was all a part of their desire to write pop songs in a way that nobody had done before.
“We took the accepted way of writing synth-music and flipped it,” Jocelyn grins. “It was like, ‘Ok, what if we took a bass synth, pad synth, and lead synth, and replaced them with strings, flutes and trumpets instead?” As such, this allowed Walt Disco to make an album that blends together the futuristic, electronic sounds of synth-pop, with classical orchestral movements, removing traditional expectation and giving both themselves and their orchestra freedom through imperfection.
“One of our favourite albums as a band is ‘Illinois’ by Sufjan Stevens, and most of the orchestral stuff on there is just chaos,” Jocelyn laughs, “so if a violinist made a mistake, for example, or was going for a bit of spontaneity or off-the-cuff ideas, we just said, ‘Go for it; if it’s messy, great!’”
“We took the accepted way of writing synth-music and flipped it”
Jocelyn Si
These ‘happy accidents’, as drummer and co-lyricist Jack puts it, add to the personality of the record, one which was primarily built upon the band’s experiences of relative fame that has followed them since the release of their first EP, ‘Young Hard and Handsome’, in 2020.
“It’s a record about all the people who lend context to your life,” Jack says. “Neither me nor Jocelyn were in love when we wrote the record, so it’s an ode to our surrounds, our friends and family; there’s no placeholder language, there’s nuance to try to achieve a specific feeling that you don’t always get from pop music.”
‘The Warping’ is a record which does what only the best pop music can do: combine beats that make you want to get up and dance with lyrics that are deceptively clever and deeply emotive. “I’m really bad at talking about my feelings in real life, in case I bring the mood down or whatever,” Jocelyn says candidly. “But with songs, it’s just easy; you can be vulnerable without having to say anything outright.”
The journey that Walt Disco take on ‘The Warping’ is heavily informed by this vulnerability, whether in the form of tour-enforced homesickness in ‘Pearl’ and ‘You Make Me Feel So Dumb’, in fragile memories of childhood in ‘Black Chocolate’, or in gender dysphoria in ‘Jocelyn’ and ‘The Captain’. In spite of all this expertly handled introspection, the band were keen to keep levity to the record, most clearly highlighted by whimsical theatre standard ‘Gnomes’.
“‘Gnomes’ is us playing faded Broadway stars, looking back to the days before we were famous,” Jack explains. “We’re just making fun of ourselves and exaggerating our fame. It started as a quiet Paul McCartney thing, then was a bit like blur’s ‘Parklife’, but when we pumped it full of orchestration and flowery language, it worked so much better.” Jocelyn chuckles in agreement, “We want people to go, ‘Who do these guys think they are?’”
Just as the band’s lyricism twists from self-deprecating humour into fragile depictions of identity, the production of the record pushes the accepted boundaries of what pop music is. From ominous instrumental opener ‘Seeds’ right through to cinematic conclusion ‘Behind The Walls’, Walt Disco almost alchemically stitched together a soundscape designed to intrigue, surprise, and inspire.
“The production mirrors the uncommon, weird textures that we tried to create with the instruments,” Jack explains. “We didn’t really want to deal in absolutes, so nothing on the record is too down in the dumps or too sugary sweet.” Jocelyn continues, “Some of our favourite artists, like Bowie or Björk, weren’t scared of having loads of genres or ideas on an album, so neither are we. We’re not trying to write bangers all the time; we want to keep doing new stuff instead of rushing to copy old songs.”
Just like the experimental pop icons that they understandably admire so much, Walt Disco have at various points throughout the album managed to cobble together gospel choirs, Brazilian bossa nova rhythms, Krautrock, and even a new-age sea shanty, and still been able to create a portfolio of tracks that not only all feel part of the same family, but that all feel identifiably Walt Disco.
Much of this individuality comes from Jocelyn’s uniquely beautiful vocal performance, one which travels between breathy, wispy falsetto and unleashed, vibrato-rich power at a moment’s notice, keeping the album from tearing apart at the seams. It’s not only Jocelyn’s voice that shines, however, with their ability to deliver immensely personal lyrics in a relatable way creating a real sense of closeness and affection with their audience.
“I’m always trying to say something big in as few words as possible”
Jack Martin
Nowhere is this clearer than on ‘Jocelyn’, a heart-wrenching retrospective into their childhood struggles with gender identity and loneliness, one which allowed them to work with Jack to silence the chaos and create a raw, visceral track. “I have quite an extreme push and pull lyrical style which is usually quite chaotic and harder to follow,” Jocelyn details, “but Jack uses this plain imagery and these metaphors that I just really related to, so I thought, ‘Ok, let’s make this one about what I’m going through’.” Jack nods, “I’m always trying to say something big in as few words as possible, and there’s this mutual empathy between me and Jocelyn where we can be honest and open, so we can be talking about two totally different things but feel the exact same way whilst listening to it.”
‘The Warping’ was born during a period of time when being a trans+ person in the UK became increasingly unsafe, a context which rumbled alongside the writing process, permeating into Jocelyn’s writing. “I think it affected me in subtle ways,” Jocelyn posits. “Since we started the album, it’s just been snowballing so that now anyone could be someone who might not accept you.”
Instead of being scared into being a wallflower, though, Jocelyn has no intention of backing down: ‘it’s scary, and the more music we make and more attention we attract it’s probably only going to get scarier. It shouldn’t necessarily be my obligation to tell you why you shouldn’t be transphobic or whatever, but I basically want to use my platform to say ‘fuck it, let’s see what I can do”.
Jack continues, ‘as a band, we’d always defend anyone’s right to be themselves. It’s important for us to be visible, and we’re more than happy to fly that flag. Hopefully, through our music and our shows, just our presence in general, we can help more people be themselves in whatever capacity they want.’
Whichever way they decide to turn next, Walt Disco already have the world at their feet, witnessed by a recent support slot with electro-pop mavericks Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), which allowed them to road test these new songs to a crowd that knows a thing or two about synth music. “Thankfully these songs aren’t as hard to play as some of the ones on ‘Unlearning’,” Jack smiles, “and by the end OMD’s hardcore fans that went to loads of shows knew the words and would come up to us and ask, ‘When’s ‘Come Undone’ out?’, which was pretty cool!”
Not only will those fans be thrilled to hear that that exact track is out now, but they’ll be even more thrilled to hear that there’s a load more Walt Disco on the way, with a complete North America, UK, and Europe tour on the horizon. “When we released ‘Unlearning’, we toured it the same month that it came out,” Jocelyn remembers, “so it’ll be good this time to have more of a gap so people can really listen to the record and hopefully enjoy it.”
Jack explains, “The album title is really more about the warping of us as people and as musicians, about change and metamorphosis. Hopefully, people can connect with it, and it builds the want for more. In their deep dive into the weird and the wonderful, they’ve not only created an album on the edge of synth-pop’s known universe, but they’ve curated something that can justifiably be described as art. Oh, and in case there was any doubt, there’ll definitely be a clamour for more. ■
Walt Disco’s album ‘The Warping’ is out 14th June. Follow Dork Mixtape on Spotify here.
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