Interview: Is Tropical

I’m not sure London has ever witnessed a band that divides opinion quite as much as dance-punkers Is Tropical. As famous for their mask-wearing and their insistence on standing with their backs to the audience as they are for their blissed out, synth-driven jams, as far as we can tell, you can either dig on their mysterious lo-fi vibes, or think they’re aloof, pretentious dicks. There really is no middle ground.

They've been knocking around the back streets of East London for quite a while now, but the world finally decided it was ready for Is Tropical back in early 2010 with the release of their debut single ‘When O’ When’ / 'Seasick Mutiny' on Hit Club Records. Spending the summer on tour with Mystery Jets, Klaxons, and The Big Pink, the band left a trail of confused-looking indie kids all over the country, and aroused the interest of legendary French indie label Kitsuné, who released the band's second single late last year.

Just as they're poised to play the massive Kitsuné meets Ponystep party over at Heaven this April, I talk to them about Justin Bieber, pounding fists and how they need to invest in some nit combs…

You seem to be having loads of fun doing what you're doing. Why are other bands so bloody miserable all the time?

We found a prescription book about two months ago so we're blithely working our way through that. But really, how could you not have fun travelling around and seeing your mates and being drunk in airports? It's impossible.

What's the best thing you've done lately?

A photo shoot with our mate Tom Beard. We got detained and nearly arrested by travel cops, but ended up getting out of trouble 'cos Tom did some wicked yo-yo tricks. Oh, and on the way home we decided to baptise each other in the Thames.

Once and for all – why the masks? 

Because being in a band isn't about making a series of lifestyle choices or statements. It's about making music and trying to play it live without your work being overshadowed by what trousers you're wearing.

Don't your management get all angry and pound the tables about the fact you still insist on covering your faces? Nowadays bands are supposed to be completely accessible at all times. You know, on Twitter and all that – telling us what they had for breakfast, or what the last sandwich they bought was.

Sometimes I Skype our manager and send him an animated gif of his own fist being pounded on the table. It seems to keep the wolf from the door.

What did you have for breakfast? What was the last sandwich you bought?

Alien head bong hit. Cheese and pickle.



You've previously squatted in places like the Toilet Factory. Are you guys more rooted now?

Yeah. Stoke Newington is the HQ, but it's like a permanent hotel. All of our mates come and stay on the floor for months on end because we figured out a way to get hot water. Even the rent game is a dangerous and exciting lifestyle, you know.

You guys are playing the Kitsuné Maison party on the 24th April. Who from the label should we be checking out right now? Or who are you looking forward to playing alongside?

Yelle are great. You should check out the new band The 23, too. I heard they’re quite good.

What else have you got coming up? Are you playing any festivals?

Our summer is currently being mapped out, but I’m sure we'll be out and about. So far all that's confirmed are some European ones that I can't spell.

You've previously said you think that this is currently a great time for pop music – would you see yourselves as fitting into a pop-style mentality or do you see yourselves as more subversive?


Pop music is the most subversive of all. People can rip the shit out of it all day and still, it keeps on creeping on, annexing and absorbing, relentlessly progressing in the face of what seems to be the cannibalisation of all that is culturally holy.

In that case is Justin Bieber our generation's Sid Vicious?

Justin Bieber is our generation's Bobby Vinton.



Finally, have you ever caught a tropical disease?

There was a time last year when we all gave each other head lice every two weeks.

Erotic porcelain, anyone?

Think, if you will, of porcelain. You’re probably picturing your nan’s mantlepiece, creaking under the weight of those disgusting clowns you’re hoping to duck come will reading time. You’re probably not picturing hooded youths beating a man to death, Snow White looking on shyly at Bashful’s hard on, or Humpty Dumpty getting his brains scrambled by the riot police. But then you’re probably not experimental porcelain artist Barnaby Barford (if you are then sorry)

Since graduating from the Royal College of Art back in 2002, Barford has been modifying a mixture of new and antique porcelain to create sculptures that make us reassess the nature of commemorative figurines. In his hands, a 19th century peasant boy becomes a 20th century teenage thug in a hoodie, and rustic maidens dancing on a bed of roses start brandishing guns.

Porcelain is no longer saved for best, but becomes an everyday tool in the artist’s cannon, something that can help them make a political or social point, or simply tell a tell of unrequited love. His 2008 series of works, which was filmed by Channel 4 for a short film, was entitled ‘Damaged Goods’. In it two porcelain figures, divided by class and separated by a shelf, try to find love in a bric-a brac store. Bless.

The Epstein

Following in the wake of Mumford, Flynn and Stornoway, urban farmer types The Epstein are doing things properly. Their pop-folk EP, ‘I Held You Once’ was formed in cottages, hallways and an old radio concert hall in Bremen, over several pots of tea, while dogs snored, fires roared, and the 16 track whirred in the corner.

Unsurprisingly for a record that has been so spread out, across land and sea, city and country, the sound is as expansive as they come.  Cinematic and enigmatic, it sounds like someone standing on a hill, looking across a valley at the miles of emptiness surrounding them and then, taking a huge breath of air, screaming out their inner most demons. Expelling all those feelings of inadequacy that soak their sheets at 5am.

And what is it that’s keeping them awake? It’s not the sound of sheep bleating, but the city, somewhere between Oxford and London, that they’ve carved out as home. Noisy, light filled, chaotic. If it’s not the bright lights from the airport keeping them up, it’s worries that they’re not going to be heard among all that competition. As they mournfully intone on ‘Another Band Has Gone’- “Will they listen to me in Soho/ Before I head on home for the bedside light?” And that’s if they can make it home on time. They’re also paranoid about missing the ‘midnight ride’. Which isn’t a freight train out of Kentucky, but the last tube.

Not that they should be too anxious. Previous plaudits have included ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Rolling Stone Magazine and BBC Radio 1’s ‘Introducing Album Of The Week.’ And they’re off touring the country and tearing it up on stages at festivals across the land. They’re doing something right, and that something is making heartfelt and vast blockbusters that defy you not to want to stroke their hair, soothing them that everything is going to be just fine. 

Found Sounds: Big Deal

Pay attention! Big Deal are showing us around their record collection...



Big Deal is the duo of Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe, East London-based garage wooze-rockers whose twanging guitars (sometimes acoustic, sometimes electric) intertwine over their lazily melodious voices like two birds swooping and soaring over a nest.

Their songs are all about the yoof of today and have snappy titles like ‘Homework’ (“Can’t do my homework, can’t concentrate, it’s ruining my grades, I can’t think straight”) and ‘Talk’. All in a boy-girl Summer Camp meets Tennis style. Whatever the one word ditty, it’s guaranteed to have that simple, cutesy, teen-drama heartbreak thing nailed down.

Here are the tracks that they reckon are a big deal…

Rolling Stones – Wild Horses



Alice and I watched Gimme Shelter recently and the scene with them in the studio recording this stuck with us. They were just so moved by the music they'd just made, which could come across as arrogant or self-absorbed if it weren't so perfect.

Foo Fighters – Everlong (acoustic version)



Better than the original in many ways. The song takes on another life that is much more cutting. His vocals are so tender that it makes you feel like you know him, like a friend is singing to you.

My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes



Heavy without any drum sounds. If you listen closely there is a kick buried in the mix but aside from that it manages to be just as heavy and moving as anything else they ever did, without the full band sound.

Smashing Pumpkins – The Boy



A very MBV-sounding Pumpkins song, taken to a more classic rock/pop place. Simple vocals sang by James Iha with a really interesting chord progression. If we ever get a drummer we want one like Jimmy.

The Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane



Another example of how perfect something can be with such simple elements. I was tempted to put the Cowboy Junkies version instead as it has this great moody thing that comes in at the end, but this one is just so cool. Sounds like the perfect summer day.

You know what? I fucking love Adele

There. I've said it. I'm not ashamed. I'm not apologetic for the fact that 'Someone Like You' makes me blub. Or that I have a massive fem crush on her because of her lovely skin and way with mascara. Why the hell should I be? GETTHEHELLOFFMYBACKOK?!

Here's a lovely interview she did with USA Today.

Oi!- The Definitive Punk Playlist

Oi! Oi! Oi!-Cockney Rejects


Sound of the Suburbs- The Members


I Heard It Through The Grapevine- The Slits


Jilted John- Jilted John


Six Pack- Black Flag


Turning Japanese- The Vapors


Paranoid- Black Sabbath


Hurry Up Harry- Sham 69


Stand and Deliver- Adam and the Ants


Eton Rifles- The Jam


Sally MacLenanne- The Pogues


Love and a Molotov Cocktail- The Flys


White Riot- The Clash


My Perfect Cousin- The Undertones


Psycho Killer- Talking Heads


My Generation- Patti Smith


Do You Wanna Dance?- The Ramones


Anarchy in the UK- Sex Pistols


Boredom- The Buzzcocks


New Rose- The Damned


Pretty Vacant- Sex Pistols


Denis- Blondie


Oh Bondage Up Yours!- X Ray Spex


No Fun- Sex Pistols


Baby, I Love You- The Ramones


Marquee Moon- Television


Fuck Off- Wayne County and the Electric Chairs


Staring At The Rude Boys- The Ruts


Hong Kong Garden- Siouxsie and the Banshees

Blue Valentine: Review

***/5

Q: What’s the opposite of a rom-com? A: Blue Valentine, a saddening divorce-trag about the collapse of a seemingly strong relationship.

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling play Cindy and Dean, a young married couple whose once exciting relationship has been soured by the mundanity of life. In the early days their courtship was full of spontaneity and romance. They dance in the streets as he plays his ukulele and sings ‘all goofy’. They decide on their song, a soulful number called ‘You And Me’. But that was then. Now, she resents him for never disciplining their child and lacking ambition. He is angry that she never has time for him, either emotionally or physically. As the film develops it becomes clear that while he hasn’t changed, she is unrecognisable from the earlier stages of their relationship. Her roles as a midwife and a Mum completely eclipse her role as one half of a couple, and it almost seems as if, during the films’ myriad of flashback sequences, you are watching two different characters.

An excruciating scene where they try to rekindle their romance with a night in a motel is acted superbly. Previously the couple have merely seemed distant, perhaps because of tiredness. This is the first time that you realise that there is no longer any love there at all. As their song plays, the lyrics ‘You and me... nobody baby but you and me’ become a horrifying message of an eternity spent with the wrong person. As he tries to initiate sex, both in the shower and on the floor of the hotel room it is obvious that any attraction between them has been replaced by a sense of duty that they can no longer hide from.

The final scene uses the flashback to great effect, showing both their wedding day, and the day they decide to divorce. The day of their divorce is grey and mundane. She looks tired and old, standing by a kitchen sink, the epitome of the bored suburban housewife. He is begging with her and seems like a child, which is exactly why she can no longer be with him. Their wedding day is a complete contrast, lit by blinding sunlight, illuminating how full of joy they are. Both scenes show them crying, but while their wedding is tears of joy, their divorce has them crying tears of bitterness. The audience was welling up as well.

Blue Valentine’s closest companion would probably be 500 Days of Summer, but it lacks that film’s humour and warmth. From beginning to end, there is very little hope in the tale of this relationship, despite every person in the cinema was willing the couple to realise what got them together in the first place.

Excellent performances from Williams and Gosling, and the film’s great use of pacing, fail to make it an enjoyable watch. But then it’s not supposed to be. A bit like the central relationship, it’s a largely dispiriting endurance test of a film that will have you clenching your fists in frustration. Especially because, deep down, there’s still a spark there that means you can’t give up on it.