Junk Drawer share new single ‘What I’ve Learned / What I’m Learning’ and announce debut album ‘Ready for the House’.
Growing up in Belfast, surrounded by unstable socio-economic conditions and by the ghosts of IRA, can leave permanent traces. Music, therefore, necessarily becomes the best form of escapism to fight internal wounds.
On ‘What I’ve Learned / What I’m Learning’ brothers Jake and Stevie Lennox share vocals to channel the delicate themes of malaise and self-worth. Their struggle with mental health issues emerges through caustic fuzzy, shoegaze guitar lines and a fragmented, distorted narrative.
Mixing the influence of Pavement with slacker-rock, kraut and post-punk à-la Fat White Family, Junk Drawer show how to move on in style from neo-psych, despite not renouncing to subtly permeate the 7-minute jam with subtle ethereal and lysergic vibes.
Try to picture Oh Sees or King Gizzard going down Squid’s route, before violently u-turning into an ecstatic, late 70s post-punk chorus. ‘What I’ve Learned / What I’m Learning’ vividly pictures Belfast grey skies and architecture as much as the internal struggles of its sons.
The song is the opener for the band’s debut studio effort ‘Ready for the House’, a personal statement and a heartfelt work made of 7 vignettes about malady and recovery. The album resolution, the band explains, is about realising that progress, and happiness, starts with seizing those light moments, little victories in a microcosmic way that can start to infiltrate the bigger picture.
‘What I’ve Learned / What I’m Learning’ is out via Art for Blind on April 3rd, followed by Junk Drawer’s debut album Ready for the House on April 24th.
Header photo by Billy Woods
We are currently offering a free copy of Issue Twenty-Three when you order our latest issue or any subscription. That’s two magazines to your door for £6. Shop here.
