On ‘Nobody Ever’ the refrain “nobody ever found love waiting for you” is a subtle nod to the loneliness felt when in the midst of a relationship with someone who is unavailable. The greater the need for comfort and validation, the more this is felt as a threat and the further you are pushed away — an endless game of push and pull where nobody feels secure and the spiral of disintegration is inevitable when left unchecked.

With a soundtrack that matches its melancholic lyrics, Jemma says that the track is “a break up song that I wrote before I knew I was in the middle of a break up. I often struggle to recognise what I am feeling, something quite common for neurodivergent people, it’s only recently I understood that you can identify your feelings within your body. However my songwriting seems to magically bypas my brain, it won’t be the first time that I’ve written something that accurately predicts or documents a major life event. “

Jemma goes on to explain, “I originally wasn’t keen on recording this in the studio as the guitar part is quite unfamiliar territory for me, we affectionately called this ‘the pop song’ as a working title because of its pop punk affectations, but the guys convinced me it was a hit so we did it right at the end of the 3 days we recorded the album in. It’s in standard tuning which due to my Hypermobility I find quite hard to play for any length of time (I’ve developed my own special tunings that are less taxing on my hands) I managed a couple of takes but I had to get Sam to play the main part as my hands totally cramped up. You can hear the exhaustion in the very last round of chords where I can barely voice the notes. It seemed to match the sentiment of the song perfectly – the last drop of energy squeezed, until it fades to become completely imperceptible.”

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Now they release the first single from the album, the infecitons nihilistic track,’Easy Peeler’. Jemma explains that the song was born out of a warm-up jam in a rehearsal, “it’s a thing of pure unadulterated fury at brexiteers, the patriarchy, antivaxers, terfs and royalists, with exasperation directed at late night online social media discourse dressed up as debate that is actually just pessimistic, shallow bigotry. Easy Peelers are a type of fruit specially bred for the skin to be easily removed. I like the symmetry of the name with the thin skinned critics of so called snow flake culture. The vitriolic delivery a testament to the unimaginable futility you can feel as just one small person in an ocean of vacuous impossibility.

“The lyrics were written by walking around and singing out loud to the instrumental track during lockdown. I’d moved from South east London to the west London suburbs, to be near to my girlfriend at the time. Being visibly queer and autistic in an incredibly homogeneous upper middle class environment felt totally unnatural. There is a limit to how many tuts and suspicious looks up and down one person can tolerate before either shutting down or lashing back. I’m not a violent person, my power lies within my words so belting out a volley of anarchic affirmations felt empowering. I liked the idea of being antagonistic, the antithesis of the boomer core values I felt I might drown in.”

Miffed is an introspective journey through psychedelic glam-rock nightmares, woozy flows of self-discovery and beguiling lyrics delivered with subtlety and intensity. The album covers themes of secret worlds, hidden agendas, apathy & anxiety, with Jemma’s sonorous voice telling a story of unravelling completely and tying yourself back up again. Emerging like joyous sci-fi warriors, the songs either overtly or indirectly demonstrate solidarity with anyone that’s ever identified feeling off-kilter with the rest of the universe and needing an equally wonky sound-track to back it.

Miffed:

1. Big Bread
2. Easy Peeler
3. Nobody Ever
4. Huge
5. Lump
6. Maersky
7. Bugles
8. I Thought Too Much
9. Sicilian Mousse
10. Take Me

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