In this micro-interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up & coming stars on the planet.

While we may have spent our precious teenage years artfully ditching class and obsessing over facial acne, Colchester natives and childhood besties Abi Dersiley and Matt Canham aka Plaitum made more illustrious use of their down time. By the tender age of 16, these kindred spirits had already crafted the ‘tantalisingly cruel’ Geisha, a hypnotic, witchy mega-banger which was promptly snapped up by the ever-tasteful Kitsuné for one of their highly-coveted compilations. Last month, the now 20 year-old pair dropped the blinding LMHY, an apocalyptic pop dazzler out on star producer Paul Epworth’s label, Wolf Tone. Read on to get schooled by Abi & Matt about metal, Metropolis and making music.

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TMR: You’ve been friends since you were kids. Which albums and/or songs from childhood have been the most influential to your music?

MC: We bonded over Gorillaz' first album when we were in school together. We then got into Salem/oOoOO/the whole witch house scene from a few years ago and started making stuff like that. My brother was super into cool new music so I used to play all his records at the wrong speed to piss him off.

AD: I was wickedly into heavy metal, sludge and slash and all of that. My dad got me the Anthrax album We've come for you all (which was my first) and I just fell in love. Memorised all the lyrics etc. Made me really appreciate that really angry noise. Witch House to me was like the electronic equivalent to heavy metal and I really dug that.

TMR: Your name intrigues us. What is a ‘Plaitum’?

AD: Plaitum doesn't mean anything. It's just a name we came up with because we needed to have one for our project.

MC: We used to make up different meanings behind it in each interview we did until a local radio guy asked us what it meant and I clammed up and mumbled something like "it's a liquid... that’s in a fish". The interview turned very stale after that.

TMR: You signed to Wolf Tone earlier in the year - what’s it like to work with emerging artist champion Paul Epworth?

MC: It's nice, he's always super down to earth and really friendly. He's definitely taught us a lot - most importantly not to get too attached to ideas. It can be really hard to let go to little things for the good of the track but it's crucial to do it - if not you have too many ideas in one place and it becomes a dense unlistenable mess.

AD: Working with Paul is great because he has a very relaxed demeanor about him. He's really helped us enhance the way we write/compose tracks. Always encouraging us to nit pick through tracks and push out leads and trim away the fat. There’s a great atmosphere and we all feed off of each other’s vibes. Good vibes.

TMR: Do you have a writing process? If so, how does it unfold?

AD: The writing process can differ. Normally life starts in Matt's bohemian bedroom; he makes a number of beats and we settle on an overall theme or emotion and sketch vocals, get lyrics down. Sometimes I'll make some instrumental piece and Matt will build the track around it.

MC: Yeah. Usually I'll put on a film (muted) with a nice atmosphere - like Drive, anything Wes Anderson, or the old silent film Metropolis. It's a nice way of getting your head into a certain space.

TMR: Do you find it more inspiring in the studio or playing out live?

MC: We haven't played live for a few years so it's hard to judge this fairly but I'm probably more of a studio person - it gives you a freedom to create what you want to and get completely absorbed in what you're doing. Also - I guess everyone says this, but - I'm a bit of a perfectionist and have a really specific idea on how I want stuff to sound which is a more attainable aspiration in the studio than live.

AD: I love being in the studio, we've worked with incredibly talented engineers and writers. It's very satisfying to bring in an unpolished track and hear it slowly progress. I can't say too much about live shows, like Matt said, we haven’t performed for some time. I do feel that with live shows there’s this kind of satisfaction you have when performing your own creations. Especially when no one knows who you are or what your music is about, you can see their first reactions.



TMR: How was your experience of your first ever show?

AD: We played at a tiny, seedy bar at the edge of town. Nothing was mic'd up properly, I brought my baby accordion with me to perform for the opening of "Geisha". Nobody could hear me play it, so I just looked a right fool standing there miming with a baby accordion. I think we bit off more than we could chew with that one since we tried to play so many different things on stage. It was an experience but I'm pretty sure we just sounded like a wall of distorted white noise.

MC: It was fun but a total mess.

TMR: If you could play with any other band, who would it be?

MC: My girlfriend works on a TV show that Django Django played on a little while ago - their tambourine broke so they left it behind. I now own said broken tambourine and have used it on a bunch of stuff so I'd like to fix it and return it to them. Failing that, there's a producer guy from the US called Yppah whose album They Know What Ghost Know was one of the first I bought and has always been a big inspiration to me - he'd be cool to play with.

AD: I would have to say Slipknot. Just picture it.

TMR: What’s the best show you’ve ever seen by another artist?

AD: A while back at a studio we worked in for a few days, I had hit a wall of some sort - bad stuff had been happening to me for a while and that day it got the best of me. I called our manager and sort of opened up to her about it. She took me for a nice dinner and we went to watch a Kelela show. It was dazzling. It was just her and a mic on the stage with some dim coloured light, she just made you feel like part of the performance and it was so intense. It made me forget about all the bad stuff and just listen.

TMR: What are your favourite new/up-and-coming producers/bands?

MC: There's kinda different scales for this I think. Most of the people I'm into at the moment are a lot bigger/more established than us so it feels odd calling them up-and-coming, but still: Lotic's stuff is really good, I've been into Rabit for a while and he remixed our track LMHY which was cool, we heard a bit of stuff from Elle Watson that's gonna be huge when it's out.

AD: I'm going to admit to being a terrible person right now. I actually have not been listening out for new stuff at this time. Though I have heard new tracks I adore recently, I've just been in this phase of relistening to old tracks that hold significant meaning to me. Like looping them constantly on the tube. I'm stuck in a nostalgic purgatory right now.

TMR: We’ve heard you both love horror films. Which are your favourites and why? Do the subjects influence your songwriting?

AD: I don't know where to start, I'm a horror nut and I have so many films I just love and adore for all different reasons. I'm finding this very difficult, all of them have touched me in so many ways. I'd have to say Cube is my favourite at the moment. The idea is simple but so complex at the same time, it's strangely dystopic and uncomfortable. It captures the feeling of being trapped. Plus it’s gory. A lot of our tracks have a very dark theme to them - some are based on real murders. Like scary stories.

MC: I have to admit that the horror film vibe is more Abi's thing - she usually puts the weirdest and darkest thing she can find on at like 2am trying to creep me out. She's in charge of most of the lyrical content too so I'm a bit useless here. Suspiria is a classic though, I've been rinsing Goblin's soundtrack to that recently.

TMR: Where do you see yourselves in 5 years’ time?

MC: Back in the dingy bar on the outskirts of Colchester trying to Mic up Abi's accordion.

Plaitum’s eponymous EP is out 4 December on Wolf Tone via Caroline International.

Photography by Julian House.

-Ayla Owen