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Back with news of their second album, ANOTHER SKY have a whole new vision. Read our latest Dork Playlist cover feature now.
Words: Sam Taylor.
Photos: Darina.
Another Sky are back with their second album, ‘Beach Day’. A record that saw the South London quartet both scrap a bunch of material during lockdown in favour of a new vision and have to deal with building a whole new studio, it’s an optimistic effort inspired by fighting for freedom and finding happiness within yourself. Following up on a showstopper of a debut that remains one of the best in recent years, it’s fair to say that hopes are high.
The news arrives alongside their new single ‘Aimee Caught A Moth’, which, ‘FYI’, doesn’t actually appear on the album, but does tell the tale of a confused moth that gets itself in a bit of a pickle. We caught up with the band’s Catrin Vincent and Jack Gilbert to get the lowdown.
Hi guys, how’s it going? What are you up to today?
Catrin Vincent: I’ve sung ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ six times, taught guitar, then gone to my friend Sona Koloyan’s gig at the Servant Jazz Quarters. Jack has been quite the professional, mixing a very cool live album. I know who I’d rather be…
Jack Gilbert: Who?
Catrin: Me. ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ is a jam.
How have you found 2023? Has it been good, or are you pleased to see the back of it?
Jack: It’s felt really good to release music and play live again. It’s really hard, totally skint. But really glad to be back.
Catrin: We’ve been sofa-surfing for two-thirds of it, so not great. But it was also great in that we chose to not give up on music.
You’ve just dropped your new single ‘Aimee Caught A Moth’ – what’s it about, where did it come from?
Catrin: It’s about our old flatmate, Aimee. Jack had this riff, and I wanted to tell a story over it. We lived with her during lockdown. She was struggling but looked after herself so well that she inspired me to look after myself.
Jack: A pedal inspired that riff, “the Tod”. I was trying to approach the guitar more simply.
Catrin: Me and Aimee had insomnia for a bit, and we deeply bonded with this moth that got stuck in our flat. To me, it was a metaphor for how I’d been living my life, this moth bashing against this artificial white light for days on end. There’s nothing there, friend! It’s not what you think it is! You’ll just get burned!
Jack: Ha, yeah, I remember that.
Catrin: I was thinking, I can’t carry on this way… One day, Aimee decided to release it into the wild, but it got stuck in a spider web outside the window, so she freaked out and grabbed a wooden spoon and… if you listen to the lyrics, you’ll know the rest. It’s a very literal song. She also makes music – Aimate. Check her out.
“I’m sure it’ll be critically panned, but that’s what a second album is for, right?”
Catrin Vincent
And it doesn’t appear on your new album? What’s that about?
Catrin: Democracy.
Will there be many songs on the record that fans will already be familiar with?
Jack: ‘Psychopath’, ‘Uh Oh!’ and ‘A Feeling’ will all be on there. We change it up from January onwards – we enter a new ‘era’, as people say these days.
Catrin: Two eras on one album; who do we think we are?
How did you find making ‘Beach Day’, did you hit upon any unexpected challenges?
Catrin: We found it great, to be honest. We have our own studio, we just made whatever we wanted to make. I’m sure it’ll be critically panned, but that’s what a second album is for, right?
Jack: It took us a while to work out what we were going to do, didn’t it?
Catrin: Yeah!
Jack: But once we got going, we had a really good time. Because we were fully in control, we just flowed.
Catrin: Flow state. Important.
You built a whole new studio in a crypt, is that right? Tell us more about that?
Jack: Our friend knew about the crypt because his mum ran a nursery in the church once, so one day, I phoned the vicar out of nowhere and asked him if we could build a studio there. It’s really big, made of bunkers. A lot of it is unusable because it’s 200 years old, but we’ve got two tunnels down there, great for drums. My dad came down to help build it with us.
Catrin: The vicar is really cool. Big IDLES fan.
On a scale of 1-10, how haunted was it?
Catrin: It has an anthrax family buried in lead coffins in the walls. It is 100% haunted.
Jack: I actually accidentally fell asleep late one session down there once, and in my nightmares, saw “slime-man”. A man with melting skin slithered over me, flopped onto the floor, and then I ran away. And woke up.
You’ve said the record deals with both anger and freedom; do you feel free?
Catrin: Like Kae Tempest said, it’s a cycle of despair and love, constantly restarting. I really do believe anger is just despair dressed up in defence. And it’s freeing to know it’s a cycle, to allow anger to exist but confront it differently, to not bury it down until it explodes beyond control, but instead, sit with it and allow it to teach you something about yourself. Jack, do you feel free?
Jack: Er, yeah. I feel free to express myself in any way I want because life is too fucking short.
How does the Another Sky on this record compare to the Another Sky on your debut?
Jack: We’re a lot more confident and less fearful of trying to be successful, I would say. We’re just in it for the good times now.
Catrin: We’re ten years in; we’re different people now. We’ve changed a lot. I think we’ll change every single album, to be honest.
What’s your most outlandish prediction for 2024?
Jack: Everything will magically go back to how it was in 2010. Better times. ■
Another Sky’s album ‘Beach Day’ is out 1st March. Follow Dork Playlist on Spotify here.
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