Shelf Lives have made a debut album for the mass confused state of being

S

helf Lives are Sabrina and Jonny, a London-based electronic punk duo, and self-described “two of the worst financial advisors this planet has ever known”, currently dividing their time between sorting taxes, bread-buying walks and working out how to introduce a live drummer without everything falling apart. It is a suitably unglamorous snapshot of where they find themselves as they head into the release of their debut album, ‘hypernormaL’.

The title comes from a feeling they’ve been circling for a while. “Hypernormalisation is a term coined by a documentary maker called Adam Curtis,” they explain, used here to describe a world shaped less by personal instinct than by “corporate structures and political powers and influencers”. Over time, things that once felt extreme start to pass without comment, creating what they call “almost a mass confused state of being”.

Rather than trying to rise above that or explain it away, Shelf Lives chose to sit with it. “With ‘hypernormaL’, we wanted to explore the characters that would manifest in this world,” they say. “We embodied some of those when writing the songs, as well as our own subconscious thoughts. But all in all, we are all those characters.”

Hi guys, how is 2026 treating you so far?

Sabrina: I try not to have too many expectations, especially when releasing new music and a debut album, but no complaints yet. I’m Canadian, and it’s just been announced that China is extending visa exemptions to Canadians, so that’s cool, I guess.  

Jonny: Nothing is making sense, and I like it; it’s nice. 

Your debut album ‘hypernormaL’ is here, congrats! What was the actual timeline of making it, and what moment would you say properly marked the start of the album?

Sabrina: Jonny (aka imdead) is the main producer, so it’s not your usual writing, demo, recording timeline. I think I found a video on my phone of us writing ‘frissioN’ summer ‘24, so it’s safe to assume it was over a year or probably just under. We really wanted to take our time with it. There is an extreme pressure of constant releasing when you’re an emerging band to keep momentum going and continue relevancy, and with some of our previous releases, we wish we had more time with them, so we didn’t want to replicate that. You can feel really disconnected to something you rush out just to meet “industry standards”, which are all fake anyway. No one really knows what they’re doing, and it’s mainly the independent bands that get affected most by that noise because they just want to share what they’re making and most of the time will do anything to achieve that – including following made-up traditional timelines and standards and now algorithms. But, I digress – a conversation for another time, perhaps.

Did you set out with anything specific you wanted to explore or achieve across the record, or was it more of an evolution?

Sabrina: It was more of an evolution for me. In fact, there were times I felt lost with it and didn’t understand what we were trying to say, but in retrospect, I think it was a natural feeling stemming from taking more time than most to create it. We were so much more explorative and collaborative with other artists and producers, which can be confusing and scary, but equally exciting, which is what I landed on in the end. 

Jonny: Definitely wanted the music to mature; that was in the back of the mind. While simultaneously leaving room for play, ofc. There were actually a lot of creative differences on this record, quite a push and pull between it being more musical or just out and out brash. I think it comes across. 

Was there a moment when it felt to click into place?

Sabrina: Yeah, when we finished writing the last song, ha! That might come across as facetious, but in all honesty, creating something that is presented as a body of work can go on forever to the creator. It’s never truly done, but hearing all the tracks together just before going to mixing was the moment of clarity. What seemed at times to be fragmented points of view naturally and organically made sense together.

Jonny: For me, this record was a creative roller coaster. Ups, downs, side to side, all the ideas at once, or none at all, through a thick mind sludge. BUT if it isn’t feeling like that, then I start to wonder if our feet may be touching the ground too often. Trying to make a record over the span of a year also has its challenges outside of the studio as you’re being pulled around by the elements of your peers, culture & your own mental state, and changes in your life. It is a crazy journey, not one for the faint of heart. 

What does being “normal” mean to you in 2026?

Jonny: My answer will be different every time, but today, being “normaL” is ultimately living in an idea from someone else’s head, that isn’t really who you are. 

Sabrina: It’s gone. It’s done. I think the idea of “normality” is ironic in a way. We’ve been so historically conditioned to strive for “normal”, and with social media, it became so apparent how mediocre “normal” is, but it’s gone so far that even rebelling against it seems futile and performative.

You worked with a wide range of collaborators across the album; what do those outside voices bring to Shelf Lives? Can you point to a moment where someone else’s input changed the direction of a song?

Jonny: We get asked the question frequently as a musician in interviews, “Who would be your dream collaboration?” (imagine that in a really over the top LA accent) and at first when we think of collaborating with another musician/artists, our first thought is to think of some unreachable set of people, who are wildly successful, and sometimes famous, and I think that’s cool and you should chase your dreams (lmao) but at the core of that is sometimes just a need for more popularity for yourself. You can sometimes miss what’s in front of you. We kinda realised we have these amazing artists all around us, already, who are our friends, and people we met on tour. We don’t need to wait until we’re ‘big enough’ or ‘good enough’. These people brought infinitely more excitement to doing this album. Which is really what was the core of what we wanted from collaborating. For example, the song ‘Sycophant’, Sean [NIXER], and I were in the studio, just playing with beats, guitar riffs, it seemed a little slow tbh. I said, “We have 10 mins to go, man,  let me just quickly bash out a beat on this MC-505 and see what happens”. Sean picks up his shitty SM58 that’s routed through his delay machine. I start the beat, Sean instantly says “I’M SO BRASH”, and obviously by that point I’ve lost it, and I’m going for it. He came up with those lyrics on the spot. I’d never even heard the word “sycophant” being used before, and when it was all done, I was like “perfect”,  another character for the hypernormaL world.  

Did you learn anything new about yourselves while putting the record together?

Jonny: Yes. Especially when collaborating. Every time I collaborate, it feels like I’ve learned 100% more than I knew before. About music, about myself and about what it is to be an artist. 

Sabrina: Writing an album is harder than I thought. We had released 3 EPs in 3 years, so you’d think it’d be just more of the same, but it’s nothing like it. It’s more of a story, a connection… a world. It naturally holds more importance, and I learned that I’m way more emotional than I probably let on. HA. 

What was the most challenging part of the whole album process?

Jonny: Knowing whether what you’re doing makes any sense, haha. The constant battle between what you think is a good idea, as an artist, and letting go of what others might think, artists or non-artists alike

Sabrina: No notes. His answer nails it. 

Where do you hope the album takes you?

Jonny: I would like to travel more and play shows. And of course, collaborate with more artists. 

Sabrina: Oh yeah, travel for sure. For me, I have my eye on Asia and Australia. I have a feeling we’d hit. I really hope to reach a wider audience that truly resonates with the frustrations laid out in each song on the album. There is something to identify within each. Something for everyone, if you will. We played in the US a couple of years back at SXSW and in NYC, and I could feel an energy from them that I know we can grow. They are frustrated as fuck, and I feel like we can be their release.  ■

Taken from the March 2026 issue of Dork. Shelf Lives’ album ‘hypernormaL’ is out 25th February.