Los Campesinos!

The band met whilst the members were studying at Cardiff University in Wales, in 2006, originally featuring Neil Turner (guitar), Ellen Waddell (bass guitar) and Ollie Briggs (drums) before later adding Tom Bromley (lead guitar), Gareth Paisley (lead vocals, glockenspiel), Harriet Coleman (violin, keyboards) and Aleksandra Berditchevskaia (vocals, keyboards, melodica, horn). They began playing live locally, gradually building enough popularity that they secured the opportunity to support Canadian supergroup, Broken Social Scene. Shortly after, the band signed to Wichita Records, releasing their debut single, “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives” in 2007. Notable influences of the band include Belle & Sebastien, Modest Mouse, The Magnetic Fields and Pavement.

The band continued to write and record songs, eventually releasing the EP, “Sticking Fingers Into Sockets,” which was hen followed by their debut full length, “Hold on Now, Youngster…” in early 2008. Los Campesinos! then embarked on an extensive tour, stopping off in Seattle for a few months to record some new songs, which would go on to form their second record, “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,” in November 2008. The band again went on the road, also touring in South America, before returning to the studio in Connecticut, US to record their third album “Romance Is Boring,” which was released in 2010.

After the album’s release, the band experienced several lineup changes, with Aleksandra and Ollie leaving the band, being replaced by Kim Paisley (Gareth’s sister) and Jason Adeline. Rob Taylor, a multi-instrumentalist, was also added to the lineup, expanding their sound. The band then travelled to Spain to record their fourth album, “Hello Sadness,” in 2011, produced by John Goodmanson. However, after its release, the band again suffered more band members leaving, with Harriet and Ellen both deciding to leave the band. Los Campesinos continued regardless, recording their fifth album, “No Blues” in 2013, which reached number 39 in the UK charts.

SOAK started writing songs at the age of thirteen following a stint in the tragically short-lived covers band, That’s What She Said. Bridie had watched her Dad playing the guitar growing up and, keen to impress him, took to recording her first batch of lo-fi, acoustic demos in secret. “When I was younger I was unbelievably shy,” she says. “I didn’t really have many friends, and I wasn’t really close with my parents then – the idea of telling my Mum anything was just … no. So when I started writing songs it was a way that I could tell her something, but not directly. I could hide things behind words, which was easy for me. I’m always hiding behind words.” All she needed was a name, and she settled on SOAK, an awkward amalgam of ‘soul’ and ‘folk’ (even though her music was neither, it’s proved fittingly between-states ever since). Maybe more appropriately, it also spelt ‘Kaos’ backwards.

Raw, intimate but shot through with moments of impatience, experimentation and joy, ‘Before We Forgot How to Dream’ is a coming-of-age record in more ways than one. Vividly capturing the rollercoaster of adolescence, it traces not only SOAK’s extraordinary journey in her own career thus far, but also those more universal themes of friendship, family, and what to do with your future. There are songs here, she says, “about regret and about how much one person can affect everything; about how I’m not very good at letting go of things, of bad memories or connections.” And there are those, too, about anger and arguments and confusion, about bullies, cheap thrills, the longing to be someone and “the desire to destroy things for no reason”.

If the songs on ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’ chart this period of SOAK finding her voice as a songwriter and her confidence as a young woman, they also document a certain loss of innocence in Monds-Watson’s life. Much is made of this mature-beyond-her-years sound and outlook, though it’s a perspective which is understandably alien to Bridie herself (“I am this age and I’m writing about being my age. I’m more aware of just how many young people are writing crazily smart things, and the fact that this shouldn’t be a surprise anymore – they just haven’t had the platform to showcase it”). So whilst SOAK’s lyricism centres on an idiosyncratically teenage universe, her debut album is ultimately about those bigger questions which become no clearer with age, and the compassion which comes with growing up.

On its surface, ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’ may appear nostalgic – romantic, even - towards a more innocent time, and despite the tumultuous tone which actually lingers beneath the record, there is a persistently positive element to SOAK’s music. “People grow up and nobody believes in Magic anymore, or you’re told to lower your expectations and that certain behaviour isn’t appropriate. This album is definitely about that time when you believed a bit more in things.” You’d venture that belief will take SOAK further yet in her young career, though ultimately her debut album seems to explore those joys and fears we take with us through life, from adolescence into adulthood – but simply get a little better at hiding.