Monday 29th January
INDEPENDENT VENUE WEEK:
ENGLISH TEACHER + special guests
£10 | £12 [+10% booking fee]
Doors open 7.30pm – SOLD OUT
18+ show
Contemporaries at Leeds College of Music (now Leeds Conservatoire) who mingled at various house parties as students, English Teacher’s four working parts had each been tinkering on their own various projects before, at last, settling on each other’s talents. Lily, Doug and Nicholas were house-sharing when they invited Lewis for a front-room ‘rehearsal’, and began working on new material post-haste. ‘Straight away when Lily asked me to come out and see what it was like, it clicked pretty quickly,’ Lewis remembers.
Independently releasing a slew of dream-popping singles during lockdown – debut ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’ remains a feature of their live set – it was upon their signing to Nice Swan Records (Pip Blom, Fur, Courting) where the wheels started picking up pace. A brooding brace of masterful singles in the Spring/Summer of 2021 sowed the first seeds of interest among the country’s tastemakers.
Building on this early success, the group spent a week bunkered in Eastbourne with producer Theo Verney to track what would become their acclaimed debut EP Polyawkward.
Gleaning spirited praise from across the indie press’ blogs and ‘zines, the EP’s launch dragged a whole host of noteworthy achievements in its wake. A 3rd place in Glastonbury Rising competition earning them a bucket list slot on the Worthy Farm billing. (‘I Cried on stage!’ Lily confesses) Support slots for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Parquet Courts and Yard Act accompanied appearances at Green Man Festival and sojourns to Europe.
And yet, despite these feats, English Teacher have their eyes cast firmly on the future. There are new songs to write (‘somewhere between Adele, Jockstrap and Fontaines D.C is what we’re tryna do’) and more heady dreams to chase.
This event is fully booked.