Sing & Tell :: Low Island

Oxford's Low Island blend a pop force with jangly electronic melodies and textured, emotive layers. Since launching they’ve racked up 2.5 millions streams over their first 2 EPs, sold out four London shows and played at festivals including Latitude, Reading & Leeds, Kendal Calling and Primavera Club.'The Whole World Tucked Away' is the band's latest single, taken from their third EP 'This Other Life', released in March.


Who are you?

Felix Higginbottom (mostly drums) answering - although this'll have to be proof-read by one of the other guys because normally we try and avoid making the dyslexic do the written interviews.

Jamie Lay and Carlos Posada sing and play guitar and keys (mostly). Jacob Lively plays bass (mostly). We're not very good at having prescribed roles in the band, so we all meddle in each others shit the whole time. It's chaos.

Tell us something about yourself and how you came to be where you are today?

We're all from Oxford, the children of university academics. So we've decided to embark upon the absolute antithesis of that - a dance music inspired indie band.

Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.

Probably, music to play on your way home from the club, but some of it might make you turn around and head back in. For some reason the songs tend to stay on the morose side, even though we're actually all very happy people... we're working on that.

Artists we really admire: LCD Soundsystem, Foals, Caribou, Thom Yorke.

Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.

Jamie and Carlos literally have ideas bursting from every orifice, so songs always begin from a blue print provided by them. This could be anything - a story, melody, chord sequence, piano ballad. The whole band then tear their ideas apart, exploring the initial material and adding more detail. It's a mixture of lengthy late night jams and heated email chains. Eventually the shape and feel of the song emerges and we get to work with producing it in our studio in Oxfordshire. We're lucky because Jamie has serious production chops and actually lives in the studio.

Tell us a little about your new single.

'The Whole World Tucked Away' was written for someone alone in their room; it's about growing up with social media and the stigmatisation of loneliness. The older you get the more you realise that humans really struggle with loneliness and it's a problem completely unspoken about, which we all have to deal with. Musically we wanted to say that just because you're alone doesn't mean you can't let loose. For the video, we shacked up in a bedroom for about three days, armed with smoke machines, confetti canons, disco balls, trampolines and strobes!



Can we catch up with you at any forthcoming live shows?

Currently on tour with Gengahr hitting up most of the UK in the next 2 weeks. Next Thursday we have a huge gig at Scala in London, where we host a night called 'Low Island + Friends'. Here we get to curate a line up of our favourite musicians, visual artists, choreographers and DJ all in one space. It's pretty special.
APRIL
22 Brudenell Social Club Leeds
23 King Tut's Glasgow
26 Scala London
28 Thekla Bristol
30 Portland Arms Cambridge
MAY
4 The Globe Cardiff
5 Liverpool Sound City

How's the rest of the year looking, plans-wise?

We're fully onboard for the summer festival circuit as well as simultaneously trying to pen an album! Excitingly we'll also be doing our first physical release on vinyl - a collection of songs from our first 3 EPs. Then in early autumn we'll do a headline tour around the UK and get the chance to play some brand new material.

Where can we hear more of your music?

Spotify, Apple Music... all those streaming sites, or iTunes, Amazon etc. If you're feeling lucky you could message us and we might burn you a CD and send it in the post. We spend a lot of time on the visuals for our music and they really demonstrate where we're coming from aesthetically with our music - so YouTube is a good place to catch our vibe.

What social media platforms can we find you on?

Instagram // Facebook // Twitter