Desperate Journalist are gearing up to release their debut full-length Desperate Journalist early next year. It comes after an EP, Cristina, and a couple of singles, ‘Happening’ and ‘Organ’, and was recorded and mixed by the band in Dean Street Studios in London, with Keith TOTP taking up co-production duties.
Cristina‘s title track and ‘Happening’ make it onto the album track listing – listen to both at the foot of the piece – but we’ve been given a first look at their video for opener, ‘Control’. It continues the band’s mining from a seam of rich influences – The Smiths linger in Rob Hardy’s dexterous 12-string guitar lines and Jo Bevan’s vocal cadences – but the band make these their own, with its 2:54 of urgent, decidedly British-sounding indie laced with a grandiosity, especially when they arrive at the chorus, Bevan’s vocals vaulting across octaves – have a watch of it above.
Says Bevan of the track: "Musically, ‘Control’ crystallises much of what we are trying to do as a band – seeking to create something that is simultaneously both aggressive and beautiful, which is instantly striking but maintains enough complexity to draw people in to our own little world.
Lyrically speaking the song is about formative unpleasant experiences I’ve had with entitled, manipulative people and the way they’ve stayed with me as nasty snippets of memory. I wanted the video to nod to the idea of persistent but fragmented thoughts hence the selected projections of various words from the lyrics. The flowers are shorthand for romance and transience and all that but most importantly look pretty."
The album is out now digitally via Fierce Panda Records, with a vinyl release set for January 26 2015; before then, they’ve four dates lined up for the end of the year:
NOVEMBER
Fri 21 – The Scene, Lincoln
Sat 22 – Actress & Bishop, Birmingham
Thu 27 – Buffalo Bar, London
DECEMBER
Sat 13 – The Chameleon, Nottingham
