English Teacher announce signing to Island Records, UK headline tour and new single
The band rework an old favourite with new single ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’.
Photo: Tatiana Pozuelo
The reverberations of hooks from one of Leeds’ fastest growing acts are going to be heard all over the country once again, as English Teacher announces their biggest tour to date, as well as release their brand new single The World’s Biggest Paving Slab.
The meeting of the right musical minds at the right place and right time often bear the sweetest fruit. English Teacher certainly falls into this category – forming in 2020 after meeting as students at Leeds Conservatoire, Lily Fontaine (vocals), Nick Eden (bass), Douglas Frost (drums, vocals) and Lewis Whiting (lead guitar) have not only synthesised their musical prowess, but their strong social bonds are clear in the music they create. Their debut EP Polyawkward last year unquestionably proved this – it produced a style so unique and arty that perhaps throwing them into the post-punk genre is perhaps too lazy a thing to do. It doesn’t feel like placing them in any specific genre can do them justice. Now the band’s rising ascent seems to be reaching ever-new heights, with their singing to Island Records, and rumours of a debut album announcement coming soon.
Perhaps released as a taster of what to expect from the band on this new step, The World’s Biggest Paving Slab is another grand addition under English Teacher’s release belt, full of witty lyrics, heavenly locals from Fontaine, and with an aura that is the perfect paradoxical mix of melancholy and bliss. The guitar work is perhaps more toned down and breezy than previous releases, but this rather perfectly helps to pronounce the emotion and feelings that Fontaine brings into the mix here. The chorus arrives to break up these riffs into an overtone of dreamlike and hazy feelings, which feels like it almost manages to reach a moment of emotional lucidity, before being cruelly snatched away again, just for another verse full of disorderly sentiments to quickly take its place.
Speaking ahead of the new single release, Fontaine said: “I wrote and recorded the demo in my bedroom in one day, during my final year of university in 2018. Moving to a city for university forced me to reflect on how my experience of growing up in and around Pendle, how witnessing the social, economic and political issues that exist around there in juxtaposition with the beauty of the landscape and the characters that live within in it, has shaped me into the artist and person that I am.’
This new tour gives many, many an opportunity to see the band, with noticeable dates at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds for a hometown show, and a mighty London headliner at the iconic Scala, which will be commencing this autumn. With a debut album surely getting closer and closer, it will be an absolute hotbed of exciting, arty and bizarre new material from them.
