#tapete

James Hoare has always made moody, sensitive guitar pop, whether with the relatively rocking Veronica Falls; with Ultimate Painting, his tense and complicated collaboration with Jack Davis; or with languid, idling Proper Ornaments, the one that likely falls closest to this one. Penny Arcade, his solo project, has one previous album in its catalogue, Backwater Collage, which Dusted called a “softly psychedelic set of songs, which engage gently but leave an indelible mark.” 

Example of a modern kids' room with a painted wood floor, wallpaper, and multicolored walls.

Lande Hekt delivers glossy self-assured power pop in this third album under her own name, following a mid-teens stint in the much more emo-punk Muncie Girls. That earlier band was full of yelps and scratches, the outraged dissonances of put-upon youth, but this one runs very smooth, a jangle like the Bats, but nothing lo-fi about the songs. They’re bright and gem-like, buttressed with confiding harmonies but subsumed in reverie.

Photo by Robin Christian

BY JORDAN MAINZER

"There's always things to write about if you move around enough," Lande Hekt said to me last month. She was speaking over Zoom from a cold, breezy Scarborough, a seaside town that she and her fiancé recently relocated to. She was responding to a question I asked her about "Coming Home", the closing track from the ex-Muncie Girl's excellent new album Lucky Now, released last week via Tapete. On that song, Hekt is returning to Exeter, her hometown where she moved from Britsol during the making of Lucky Now, after a long tour. "Play the game / The first to see someone we know," she sings over one of the record's plentiful jangle pop earworms. "If you've got a keen sense of smell, you can breathe it in, that's coming home." Hekt refers to the strongest sense for triggering memories, while her wistful lyrics and sharp guitars recall her 80's and 90's forebears like The Wedding Present and The Sundays. Still, she prefers to concentrate on her present.

In honestly writing about her life and perceptions of the world at-large, Hekt has given us an earnest, positive, and immediate album. That she wrote and recorded it over multiple years, tracking most of the instruments herself with producer Matthew Simms, makes it all the more personal. Lucky Now opens with "Kitchen II", a sequel to a standalone single released in 2020, a dedication to her partner. Swirling instrumentation gives way to gentle acoustic guitar and pattering drums, like morning dew and raindrops, as Hekt sings, "First time I saw you I was filling my water / feeling terrified like a lamb to the slaughter," aptly describing the intensity of love. "Now, we spend our nights in a candlelit kitchen," she continues, content atop twinkly electric guitars before a swell of distortion ends the song. "Middle of the Night" acts as a reminder that it can be jarring to feel happy while chaos engulfs you, represented by background noise swallowing the string instruments. "Submarine" exemplifies why it's important for Hekt to surround herself with love and music, especially when "everything is changing faster than you can say, 'artificial intelligence.'" And she attacks the ills of the globe head on, on the one-two punch of "Circular" and "A Million Broken Hearts".

Throughout April, Hekt and a rotating touring band, including guitarist Alex Hall and drummer Noah Radley, will bring Lucky Now to life all over the UK. Like the way she feels about her personal life and ability to make music, she doesn't take touring for granted, given her bandmates have to juggle the other bands they're in. "It's tough out there," she said. "I'm very lucky to have people who are happy to join me on tour and make these bedroom creations sound okay live as well. It's very different having a whole live band when you're layered up loads of instruments in the studio." Read our conversation, edited for length and clarity, and see her tour dates, below.

Photo by Robin Christian

Since I Left You: The time spanning the writing to recording of Lucky Now was the longest for any record you made. Was there any specific reason for that?

Lande Hekt: The most specific reason is the most dull reason, which is budget. It's really expensive to book an entire studio. It had to be done in bits and bobs, basically. But actually, I really enjoyed doing it that way, because it gave a load of space in between each song, to pause and be able to make sure it wasn't a terrible mistake what we were doing with each song. It was more carefully considered.

SILY: I'd say fans of DIY music are more acutely aware of budget, and are less likely to ask, "Why has it been so long since you released an album?"

LH: It's at the forefront of more people's minds than not. There are some people who presume that if you're a musician, you're just going to be creating music all the time. Obviously, people into independent music are bit more aware of the landscape, that it's not really like that. I'd love to sit and write music in my studio all day long. It doesn't really go like that. It's too expensive. I don't have a studio. [laughs] You have to do loads of other stuff; being a musician is mostly doing the boring, practical things. You only really get to sit, write, and record about 5% of that time.

Even touring--I'd love to tour all the time, but it's become quite expensive. When it was cheaper, I used to tour in a way that was very cheap, and when I was in Muncie Girls, we used to sleep on people's sofas and slum it. We didn't have any money during the day on tour, so we'd go to the supermarket and sit in the carparks and eat pots of hummus. We wouldn't eat again until the promoter fed us, which would usually be some sort of band slop. [laughs] Not that I don't love band slop. After you've been doing that for a lot of years, you kind of really start to crave a bed. I don't drink anymore, so I love to be able to sleep properly. I can't just pass out wherever I fancy anymore.

The whole thing has become a little more of an intensive process where you have to organize things well and have a little bit more of a budget before you go out and do things. Some people are more aware of that than others, but it's probably a good idea for people to realize that it's expensive and hard, and only a privileged few people can do music intensely every day as their main career. It's not realistic for most people.

SILY: A lot of folks romanticize the punk style of touring, without thinking, "Actually, it's not super comfortable to have back problems or fail to eat nutritiously." Also, unless you're a big band, you can lose money on touring.

LH: Being in a punk band and touring within the punk community was the best time of my life, but I was also young. Obviously, everyone looks back and thinks, "That was so great," and it was genuinely amazing to be a part of something and have so few needs. When you're younger, you feel like you've got everything you need. Now, in the indie pop world, there's still a DIY community that's got the same ethos, but now [that] I'm in my early 30's, [I] do have to have a certain level of comfort, to have meals and stuff.

SILY: Speaking of the aesthetic switch from Muncie Girls to your solo career: It's definitely a good era for indie pop and jangle pop. There seem to be scenes all over the Western Hemisphere.

LH: For sure--similarly to punk, I think, because it's got the same roots and ethos, the jangle pop DIY circuit. I can't really tell whether it was always there in recent years, or whether there's been a bit of a resurgence in the past few years. I'm a little new to this scene over the past few years. I've always enjoyed C86-type music, but for me, actually touring on the circuits has been quite a new thing. It's so great: There are so many new bands popping up all the time, so I feel lucky to be around when that's happening. It does seem to be all over the place. I bet there are indie pop scenes in every country, really--you just have to look really hard to find underground scenes, don't you?

SILY: For sure. You also have some of the big bands coming back, like Heavenly. Amelia Fletcher has her own label. It seems multi-generational.

LH: [Her and husband Rob Pursey's] label, Skep Wax, put out so many young bands. They're really keen to keep the scene alive and not just have the older legacy bands getting pushed to the forefront, which is really cool to see, because that would be quite easy. A lot of those bands that were around in the late 80's or early 90's, that never stopped playing or have come back recently, are actually still really good and sound amazing live. You'd have enough to choose from if you just had those bands, but it's really nice that bands like Heavenly want to invest in the scene now and give younger people a chance to have their day as well.

SILY: When you released the title track as a single, you wrote on Instagram that it was your favorite track on the album. Why is that so?

LH: I just really like that song because it's maybe the poppiest song on the record. When you've written loads of songs, and each one, as you're writing it, you're thinking, "This is sounding good enough to go on the record, I guess," that one, [on the other hand,] I really liked from the beginning and felt I actually captured what I wanted it to sound like. I know it sounds kind of silly--you'd imagine that everything you're putting out is what you want it to sound like--but I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. Not a total perfectionist, because this is imperfect music. But in terms of wanting to actualize my vision, this is the only song I've felt like I've actually done it with. That was really nice for me, to be able to put out something I was 100% behind. I couldn't tell you exactly why I like it. It's a very poppy song, and it's got a nice jangle pop picky guitar part. It lends itself to a lot of the tambourine, and I really like tambourine. I'm always playing way too much tambourine, but I think it sounds cool in that song.

That one is definitely my favorite, and it makes sense to call the record Lucky Now, because there were a lot of other songs on the record that didn't really work as names for the record. There's another song, "Rabbits", and I thought, "That could be cool to call it Rabbits and have a rabbit on the cover," but I talked myself out of that because it doesn't really work for any of the other songs on there. I just liked the idea of it being kind of a simple idea that I could literally illustrate well. In terms of what the record actually means and represents, Lucky Now made a lot more sense.

SILY: "Rabbits" is a song that takes place during the summer solstice, but it's really about summer as the concept of possibility, of thinking you can fulfill all these goals even though in the past you haven't been able to do so. Nevertheless, every time the summer comes, it brings a new hope. In contrast, I feel like most of Lucky Now is more in-the-moment and/or reflective as opposed to looking forward.

LH: I think so. There are reasons that it feels like that, even if not lyrically. The way the guitars sound--we recorded all of them with a 1978 Roland Jazz Chorus amp, which has a really chiming chorus sound that's quite reflective.

SILY: The first time I heard the title track, I thought, "They knew exactly when to bring in the fuzz for maximum emotional impact," like a lot of the good jangle pop and shoegaze songs do.

LH: I was thinking that a lot of DIY pop or indie pop of the 80's that's really janky sounding has such intense distorted guitar, that if you're trying to make something sound even a little bit like it, it's really hard unless you actually come from a punk band or punk background. I do, but I never played much punk guitar. You need a quite bad-sounding distorted amp and guitar, a sloppy technique. The Shop Assistants, their guitars are so distorted, but it's not overwhelming because of the mix and the way it's produced being DIY. It doesn't sound like too much because the guitars are not that powerful in the mix. It always surprises me how much fuzz is used on a lot of pop music.

SILY: Fuzz makes you think of pop as having to do with the catchiness of the song rather than the quality of the sound. People incorrectly think of pop as clean sounding, when it's really about the melodies and hooks. It's allowed to sound a little rough.

LH: Recording layers of guitars and proper fuzzy guitars is so much fun. It's very easy to get carried away. I can't even think how many layers of guitars we ended up putting on this record, but a lot, basically, because it's so much fun.

SILY: There are bands whose entire careers are based on getting carried away with layers of guitars, especially live.

LH: Yeah, exactly. It's just too easy to do.

SILY: I wanted to ask you about the songs on here that have political elements: "Circular" and "A Million Broken Hearts". The album's bio mentions that this is a newfound thing for your solo career. Did the newer, in-the-moment, positive outlook of this record allow you to feel more comfortable to include your interpretation of what's going on in the world?

LH: Yeah, maybe. I don't know exactly why it is. I used to write much more political songs and write about political themes in Muncie Girls, but I was a lot younger and things seemed really simple in the sense that I had this confidence where most of the time I didn't really know what I was saying. I definitely felt as though I knew what I was saying, but I only had to know enough to say what I wanted to say. I would just say it. I wouldn't be frightened of someone challenging me academically. I just thought, "If they ask a question I don't know the answer to, I'll just say, 'I don't know about that, but I know what I think, and it's this.'" With the changing political climates of the last six or so years, I shied away from it. It stopped me from writing political lyrics.

It's really common that people think that writing about politics is cringeworthy. I kind of understand it when things are too on-the-nose, and the listener already knows that point, it's a little bit embarrassing. I feel it's really important to weigh up whether it potentially being a little bit embarrassing, whether that's worth stopping you from saying anything. When you think about it, in most terms, it's such a ridiculous reason to not vocalize how you feel about certain things, because that's gonna start conversations and let people know you're thinking about these things. If everybody's really, really downtrodden and decides they won't mention their thoughts on a topic because it's been said already, then we're all just saying nothing. I just had that overwhelming feeling of, "What have I been doing not including things that mattered to me for the sake of worrying that I'm saying them a little bit wrong?" I probably have said them a little bit wrong, but I think it's probably better to try and say something. I kind of had enough of that angle of thought and changed my mind a little bit. Obviously, things are just worse, so writing about politics is just going to happen if you write about the things that you're thinking about.

The more positive side of the record is just down to me feeling generally more positive about my own life and things that are going on. I'm not very good at writing a calculated song. I just write about what I'm thinking about, and I've never been able to do it any differently. It's kind of ended up with these two kind of contrasting topics. I've really enjoyed it. It was only a little bit of politics and a little bit more vague, but in a song called "Circular", I have literally done that thing where it's so on the nose. There's the word "austerity" in there. It is embarrassing, to be honest, but at the same time, all music is so embarrassing. No matter what you're doing, you're putting out your creations. It's horrendously embarrassing, especially in the age of social media. At some point, you've got to just think, "Never mind, not everybody is going to like that, and that's completely fine."

SILY: You did an interview with Ticketmaster a few years ago, and you said this more in the context of you coming out, but you said, "I think once people stop being vocal about who they are, or their beliefs, it makes it a lot easier for them to be silenced, because they’re already silencing themselves." That idea can extend to anything. Being true to yourself is a political act in a way, especially in these times when the ultimate goal of the people in power is to silence you. Even if you're just writing about your joy, it can be a political act.

LH: Definitely. No matter what the reason is for people feeling like they shouldn't share who they are or how they feel about things, no matter what the reason is they're collectively feeling like they shouldn't say anything, it's clearly not a good thing. It can't really continue to happen. You've got to share your values and thoughts and be open about things. If someone is not sharing who they are and are silencing themselves, the right-wing powers have won without having to do anything. I don't think people should do those favors to those people.

Lucky Now cover art

SILY: Can you tell me about the cover art?

LH: The photo was taken by my friend Robin Christian in London. I bought the letters--they're like wooden children's letters I bought from a local stationary shop. It's an incredibly simple artwork. The amazing photo is doing most of the heavy lifting. But I just really loved those letters, and it helped me to get a color scheme on the go. It didn't take too much thought to put it together. As soon as Robin sent me the photo, I thought, "I'd really like to use that on the cover." I'd actually already used it for a tour poster last year, because I wasn't really thinking that I'd use it [for the album]. I was just too excited. Nobody noticed.

SILY: Is that your leg and tattoo?

LH: Yes, one of my more embarrassing tattoos. Again, just, whatever. Of course it's embarrassing, I was 18. I was like, "I like playing the bass. I'm going to get a bass tattooed, massive, on my leg." But I like it again now, because it's obvious, and maybe that's a good thing.

SILY: People have much more embarrassing tattoos they got when they were 18!

LH: That's true, and I did not choose to get those pictured for the record. [laughs]

SILY: Have you played any of these songs live?

LH: I've played "Favorite Pair of Shoes". The last time we did some gigs, that song was already out, so it was quite a good time to road test it. We also played "Lucky Now" once at a gig in London in October. Other than that, no. I haven't really been doing that many gigs over the past couple years. I haven't really tested any of these songs live, so it will be quite interesting to see how they translate.

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who is always strumming on a guitar or jotting down ideas, or do you need to dedicate time to sit down and write new songs?

LH: It kind of depends where I am in the process of releasing music. Right now, because I've had to squeeze my creative brain to the limits, I haven't really written much since I finished writing Lucky Now. At the moment, I haven't been writing much at all. I'm focusing on booking shows, doing promo, and all the admin-y parts. I'm getting excited working on manufacturing and putting out the record. In a few months, once I finish touring this record, I'll get back into writing a lot.

I do go through phases where I play guitar all the time, and that's when I'm coming up with ideas. I'm not very disciplined at all, so I won't put time aside to write anything. If I do that--and I've obviously tried doing that--nothing good comes out of it at all. I have to wait until I feel the feeling to go and write something or jump on the guitar. I'm looking forward to when the time comes when I'm going to be doing that a lot and have lots of ideas coming to me, but after you recover from having to write a whole album or getting an album finished, working on arranging and recording the songs, it can be so full-on that you don't really get much time to write. When all of that is over, I think I'll feel full of ideas again. It kind of varies through the different processes. They say it's like a cycle of a couple or a few years before you're writing quite a lot again, so it's probably quite soon, hopefully.

SILY: Is there anything next for you in the short or long-term that you haven't mentioned?

LH: I'd love to do some more tours. Hopefully, release something not too long after this record.

SILY: Is there anything you've been watching, listening to, or reading lately?

LH: I'm reading a really good book, [Yael van der Wouden's] The Safekeep. It came out in 2024 and won the Women's Prize [for Fiction]. It's a Dutch book, set in 1961 in the Netherlands. I am very bad at reading. Like most people, my attention span has been completely fried by too much screen time. I absolutely love reading, and I used to read so much. It's been really nice to get back into a book I can get stuck into and not force myself to pick it up.

Like most queers, especially in the U.S. and Canada, I've been watching Heated Rivalry. I found it very emotional. I'm not a sports fan, and there's a lot of masculine energy in there, but I thought it was really good. I'd say it's worth watching. A lot of the time, when something's so hyped up, you think, "It can't possibly be that good. It's probably just that it's a bit of a talking point." But it actually is very watchable.

UK tour dates:

4/3: The Gate Arts & Community Centre, Cardiff 4/5: The Pump, Trowbridge 4/6: Fish Factory, Penryn 4/7: The Lens, Portsmouth 4/9: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate 4/10: Nci Centre, Cambridge 4/11: The Holloway, Norwich 4/12: National Justice Museum, Nottingham 4/13: Fulford Arms, York 4/19: MOTH Club, London 4/20: The Prince Albert, Brighton 4/21: Strange Brew Bristol, Bristol 4/22: Exeter Cavern, Exeter 4/23: Kamera, Manchester 4/24: Mary Street Live, Sheffield 4/25: Little Bully, The Bullingdon, Oxford

Wreckless Eric Goulden wrote these songs in the early 1980s, just after getting dropped by Stiff Records and in the midst of a turn from the jagged power pop of cuts like “Whole Wide World” towards acerbic social commentary.  They were originally recorded by a short-lived, Goulden-led band called Captains of Industry, an outfit which included Ian Drury’s keyboard player Mickey Gallagher, who can be heard on the original release tootling away on organ.

As originally realized, the songs were an odd mix of biting satire and giddy Beatles pop, sung with a trebly enthusiasm that undercut an often subversive message. It was a commercial and critical disaster. Explained Goulden in a 2008 interview in Turn It Down, “The whole thing was a disaster because no one knew who or what Captains of Industry was and we got really bad reviews. It was the 80s and everyone was having a great big cocaine party — all except me, drunk and disgusted in my corner. I tried to make an album about the state of the country, real life under the Thatcher regime, but no one wanted to know. I think the production lets it down — I particularly don't like the vocals or the vocal sound. When Different Class by Pulp came out it all became clear, that was the album I'd wanted to make but I wasn't up to it.”