[article originally posted in 2022 – reposted in celebration on English Teacher’s 2024 Mercury Prize winning album, This Could Be Texas].
English Teacher are one of the hottest prospects in the UK: fresh from the release of debut EP, Polyawkward, the Leeds band are now embarking on a headline UK tour.
The EP itself is a wonderful mix of thoughtful melancholy and no-holds-barred math punk: Lily Fontaine is frontwoman, utilising her voice in spoken word alongside impressive singing and guttural shouting. Her introspective lyrics offer an innate sense of malaise which is present from English Teacher’s earliest singles right up to Polyawkward. Exploring themes of dating, parties, late-night supermarket trips, and the anxiety-inducing yet mundane aspects of life – Fontaine’s lyrics act as a window into the dysfunctional and nihilistic lives of young people in modern Britain. English Teacher’s instrumental output is just as engaging; groovy, funky basslines dual with frantic punk guitar, combining to create ethereal, intriguing compositions that are both punchy and powerful.
In short, they’re a band of an incredible high, accumulating snowballing critical praise and picking up some impressive support shows (including a Manchester slot with Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Last night saw English Teacher stepping into the role of hometown heroes, tearing the roof off Leeds’ legendary Brudenell Social Club ahead of tonight’s performance in Manchester’s YES Basement.
Ob: How did it feel to tackle the Brudenell headline show as local headliners? how was the live reaction to the new material?
ET: It felt like the biggest gig of my life, to be honest with you… it was our first main headline show in Leeds, we spend so much time at the Brudenell, so it’s great to play there, we literally live ten minutes away! The songs went down pretty well too and the new new stuff was good.
Ob: Wow, can you tell us about the new new stuff?
ET: I don’t know.. it’s definitely sadder. Last night was the first time we had played two of the new songs, but it was okay, they seemed to go down well.
Ob: What’s the songwriting process like for English Teacher, Do you write on the road or do you tend to write at home?
ET: We’ve never tried writing on the road, maybe we should. It tends to be like, someone brings an idea and we work it out in a room as a band. Sometimes Lily will have a lyrical idea, or if Doug’s got a little riff then we tend to pull it together as a group.
Ob: With the lyrical content of your tracks, do you often draw from real-life and the world around you?
ET: Pretty much, yeah. I normally hear about something or hear stories and use that as a basis to talk about something that I feel needs to be talked about.
Ob: In a recent interview, you described your work as a “mix of weird shit”, which is a term I really liked. What were you listening to when you recorded Polyawkward?
ET: We recently had a playlist article published, I spoke about Blur, and Joni Mitchell – there’s Black Country, New Road in there, Sorry, Shame, there’s a lot of South London bands involved. But I also like a lot of classic indie, I’m going through a bit of a renaissance of ‘indie sleaze’ music. A lot of pop stuff too; I like Charli XCX, and SOPHIE among others. And Primus. And Tool!
Ob: What bands are you listening to at the moment, what’s on your playlists?
ET: Thank for sure! I recommend them every time, but it’s only because they’re brilliant. A Leeds band too! Fuzz Lightyear as well, I just think they’re incredible. Loads of the bands around Leeds are great: Pop Vulture, Treeboy and Arc. Last night was so good because we had our friends and their bands supporting us – we were watching the support and turned to one another mentioning how good a gig it was, forgetting it was ours.
Ob: English Teacher have had a lot of plaudits and praise from a variety of publications and fans. As a young band, how do you deal with the pressures that this kind of attention brings?
ET: It is nice… it’s a lot though. I [Doug] don’t read a lot though, whereas you [nods towards Lily] do. It can make you anxious: worrying about bad reviews. We are our own worst critics, right up until a song is released we’re always worrying and fretting about it, like “oh my god, it’s shit, it’s terrible”. It’s great to have people enjoy the songs we write, it’s really reassuring.
YES Basement is sweaty before English Teacher take to the stage, and reaches fever pitch as the group emerge.
Fontaine assured us prior to their set there were three new tracks in tonight’s intinerary, one of which was the opener, ‘Albert Rd Part 1’. And, before we can digest the new cut, they tear into a track that sounded like some of the most intense Black Midi or Squid cuts. The ferocious song is angular, frantic and heavy, shining a light on ET’s punkier side, which the Manchester crowd relishes. Fan favourites ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’ and ‘R&B’ are next up, once more met with cheers and howls of appreciation from the Manchester crowd.
English Teacher deliver tight compositions with intense fury and passion; the fun they clearly have on stage is palpable and the crowd feeds on the band’s energy. Frequently breaking into offhand jams and riffs, including an extended jam whilst Fontaine tunes up, which transitions from groovy elevator music to frenzied art-punk. Fontaine spills the beans though, “that may or may not have been a new one we’re working on”.
“This ones called ‘A55‘ but we call it “ass”, Fontaine muses as the band launches into the cut: ‘A55’ is a highpoint in a set of highpoints, seeing the sweaty YES basement descend into raptures of dancing, ethereal swaying and mass sing-alongs. As ‘A55’, grows into its transcendent crescendo, YES becomes otherworldly: the intense power of this track’s heartfelt melancholia courses through every member of the audience.
ET are then joined by a cellist for ‘Wallace‘, and the centrepiece of Polyawkward, ‘Yorkshire Tapas‘. The track is a marvel. Fontaine stalks the stage, professing a spoken word poem to the crowd which details a date at the pub: the band backs her up with short bursts of leftfield, jagged instrumentation before allowing Fontaine to continue. The poem finishes and ET burst into yet another of their angular, avant-garde punk jams, the intensity of the instrumentals mirroring the swell of Fontaine’s lyrics.
The show is over before you know it and the crowd files out of YES, sweat dripping from the basement ceiling. A truly fantastic show from one of the UK’s brightest musical prospects.
featured image: Tatiana Pozuelo
