About this Event

VUKOVI

plus Press to MECO / Pandora Fox



For Fans Of: Marmozets, Arcane Roots, Foals



Tickets: http://www.theboileroom.net/listings/events/5-jun-17-vukovi-the-boileroom/



Janine Shilstone and Vukovi demand your attention. Coming March 10th, alongside a full UK tour, Vukovi’s self-titled debut album is the definitive snapshot of their Technicolor wonder to date. Produced by longtime collaborator Bruce Rintoul – “nobody pushes me quite like Bruce” says Janine – and released on LAB records, its twelve songs take in themes of individuality, drug abuse, depression and suicide. “The record might sound quirky,” says Janine. “But there are many darker notes in there…”



Opener ‘La Di Da’ you will know, as it debuted as a single last year. Written on Garageband by Janine when drunk, and partly inspired by the Joker and Harley Quinn (from Batman) relationship Janine was obsessed with as a comic book loving teen, “the song portrays an abusive relationship unbeknown to the victim,” says the singer. “There are a lot of emotions throughout the song. There’s vulnerability, and there’s resistance. It took time to come together, and it had to live on the back burner for a while. But one night I gave in to the niggling that kept demanding I go back to it. I remember the moment it came together; me and Hamish (Reilly, guitars) in my flat drinking pretentious cocktails, laptop, tiny amp, guitar…” Incessantly giddy, intoxicatingly catchy; the end result more than rewards the toil.



‘Weirdo’ is the closest the record comes to giving Janine her own personal theme song. Not only the most unashamedly pop moment on the record, but a now world wise nod to personal experiences of times gone by. “I had a bit of trouble at school”, explains Janine. “I was different, and I wrote the song to encourage people to stop being ashamed of their quirks, their interests, the way they look. At school you think it’s the end of the world when people laugh, comment, target you for being different. Now I’ve realised over time that these people target you because you’re a threat, you’re interesting and when they look at themselves, perhaps they realise that they’re pretty boring.” The song plays out like a letter from adult Janine to kid Janine. “I know everyone says it, but it’s just jealously,” she smiles.



Janine digs further into personal experience for ‘Prey’ (“it’s about a time in my life where I thought I’d met my knight in shining armor – but he fucked me up even more) and the sublime ‘I’m Wired’, Janine’s favourite song on the record (“I wrote it trying to describe being in a relationship with severe depression and trying to express that you need that person even though you don’t show it most of the time”). But it’s on ‘Wander’ that Janine lays herself barest… surprisingly, given for the longest part she didn’t like the song.



“I never liked this song, but I was overruled in a majority vote,” she says. “Bruce kept telling me he’d convert me to loving it. And I didn’t think he would… but I have to say, I cried the first time I heard the final mix.” The song, which is perhaps the never before noted midpoint between the XX and Incubus, sees bassist Jason Trotter and drummer Colin Irving locking in with the subtlest of grooves, while Hamish’s fragile, skeletal guitar fills the spaces with graceful beauty. “This song is a gift to my brother,” says Janine. “He lost a friend to suicide a few years back. His name was Andrew; an anagram of Wander.”



Vukovi are a band never short of colour. Never lacking a change in tone. There’s introspection here, yes. There’s beauty, sure. But there are songs like ‘And He Lost His Mind’ too, which is as fun as rock music has ever allowed itself to be. A big, bouncy, neon daubed earworm that bores itself into your brain and gobbles up on your serotonin. There’s ‘Boy George’, a former single with a guitar sliced through it like a chainsaw through a piñata. And, if you’re going to call a song ‘Bouncy Castle’, chances are that it’s not going to be an acoustic weepy. Vukovi truly excel here, coming on like Paramore span around and around and around until they’re very dizzy and just about ready to hurl up something… wonderful.



“Obviously Boy George and Bouncy Castle are former singles, but I think what Bruce has done with them is give them an extra breath of life,” smiles Janine. “And then He Lost Is Mind is one of our most frantic songs. It’s raw, it shows off the boys playing ability amazingly and that outro with the whammy guitar sounds so dirty I want to wash after hearing it!”



Similarly (but too angry to ever be dismissed as merely ‘fun’) and another product of Janine’s adventures in booze and Garageband, ‘Animal’ deals with themes of karma and snarls with the spirit of early Queens Of The Stone Age. And what was just said about tone? Up above these words? Make no mistake; Vukovi can lurch into places of fury with the flick of a switch. Consider ‘Target Practice’ (“written after our first ever bad review – it’s a ‘fuck you’ to negativity”) or another old, reworked song, ‘He Wants Me Not’; “It’s about being fucked about by someone you’re so into, who keeps changing their mind whether they want to be with you or not…” says Janine. The chorus, which sees Janine repeating the mantra of “he wants me… he wants me not…” over and over… well, the idea of flower pedals surrounding her and a sneer on her face is an enduring image.



But then, this is a record made up of many, varied portraits of one of Britain’s most exciting and most unique new bands.



The Boileroom

13 Stoke Fields

Guildford

Surrey

GU1 4LS

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