PORIJ
annunciano il loro album di debutto
“TEETHING“
in uscita il 26 aprile su Play It Again Sam
Il nuovo singolo è
MY ONLY LOVE
PORIJ
annunciano il loro album di debutto
“TEETHING“
in uscita il 26 aprile su Play It Again Sam
Il nuovo singolo è
MY ONLY LOVE
I Porij annunciano oggi il loro attesissimo album di debutto, Teething, in uscita il 26 aprile per Play It Again Sam Records (Nation Of Language, Editors e Lykke Li). I quattro elementi, che si sono ritagliati un posto di primo piano nella dance-pop queer, annunciano oggi anche una serie di date nel Regno Unito e negli Stati Uniti, tra cui il loro più grande show da headliner a Londra all’Electric Ballroom. Il nuovo album è co-prodotto dalla band e dal leggendario David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Young Fathers). Dopo aver aperto gli show per Metronomy, Coldplay e Friendly Fires, oltre ai propri spettacoli che hanno conquistato il pubblico, i Porij hanno ricevuto una valanga di attenzioni da parte della stampa e delle radio, e sono stati elogiati come “one to watch” da esperti del settore come The Guardian, NME e BBC 6 Music. L’arrivo di Teething invita a guardare oltre la musica dance come un genere, ma di vederla come una dimensione a sé stante: un luogo in cui fuggire. Questa settimana la band si imbarca in una serie di piccoli show nel Regno Unito, sold out appena annunciati.
Porij are Egg (Scout Moore), Jacob Maguire, James Middleton and Nathan Carroll.
New single My Only Love is about the safety and comfort of a settled relationship, for better or worse. Egg’s voice is tender, like a familiar hand stroking your cheek, while the beat plunges into a cosmos of dream-like denial: “I don’t know if this will be my forever love but it’s my only love for now.” It jolts against the boundaries of genre in a similar manner, as Porij describe it, to a DJ approaching a club set – fluid, playful and ever-changing. The accompanying video finds the band at their most tender and human – a striking development compared with their fun-filled visuals to date.
On the new single, Porij say: “I went to see ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at the National Theatre and was
completely struck by a moment in the closing monologue which has the line “Dancing with eyes
half-closed because to open them would break the spell.” This felt so fitting to how I was
immediately dealing with the conflict I was experiencing. The power of succumbing to denial felt
particularly inviting. Over time the lyrics settled and this song anchors on the thoughts in the
bridge saying ‘I don’t know if this will be my forever love but it’s my only love for now’. It’s easy to
put pressure on a long term relationship but through this song I remembered to enjoy each
moment and not take things too seriously.”
On the accompanying video, direcor Maxi McLachlan says: “I came up with the idea that I wanted to show Egg travelling between snapshots of love between real couples, friends and lovers, jumping in and out of photos.I didn’t want the video to be cynical at all, there’s plenty of work exploring our photo-taking obsession (especially in the age of smartphones), I wanted this to just celebrate the joys our modern access to cameras can bring us. My hope is that it gives anyone that watches it a warm, nostalgic, fuzzy feeling and makes them remember some special people. Lord knows there were plenty of them involved in the making of this!”
Porij have endured the sharp pains of self-discovery. Every raw nerve, every bloody scrape and sprain, have been necessary for that unavoidable thing we must grit our teeth and bare: growing up. Vocalist and keyboardist Scout Moore (Egg), bassist James Middleton, guitarist Jacob Maguire and drummer Nathan Carroll are armed with hard-won experience, strengthened bonds and a renewed sense of passion. Their debut album Teething is both a coming-of-age story and a bottling of the particular magic that is unmistakably – and definitively – Porij.
Rather than floating just beyond our reach on a digital cloud, Porij are a real band anchored to tangible sound. Following their success over the last 3 years , the band had awoken an appetite for something we didn’t realise we were so hungry for: a collision of between the worlds of indie-rock and dance music, weaving together the organic with the electronic to create something at once tender and transcendent.
Teething is an admission of vulnerability that is saved by its euphoric production which follows Egg faithfully like a spotlight, a companion in the dark. “In that time, I felt like I was really insular,” they reflect. “I was writing a lot of poetry day to day, and I’d just moved to a new flat. I knew we had this deadline, and I became slightly nocturnal, walking around at really odd times in the very early morning writing lyrics.” There is a particular song on the record which Egg found it frightening to let go of. Stranger is about their personal experience as a non-binary individual, touching on themes of gender dysphoria and highlights how the smallest things can carry the most weight. But with the lightness of the beat, there is relief.
Teething proves that change can cut deep, but the propulsion to keep moving is what saves you.