New music review with singles from Ebbb and Slowhandclap
- Julia Mason aka The Decibel Decoder
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Our weekly fix of the best new music as Julia Mason (aka The Decibel Decoder) brings us her new music review with singles from Ebbb Book That You Like and Slowhandclap Horses in Transit
Artist: Ebbb
Track: Book That You Like
London-based trio Ebbb return with their third and final single of 2025, Book That You Like, as they continue to follow-up last year's debut EP, All At Once, with a series of new singles on Ninja Tune.
The news coincides with a run of shows opening for The Orchestra (For Now). This autumn has seen the trio play a sold-out headline show at the Brixton Windmill, support Shame on tour across Europe and hit up festivals including Mutations and Reeperbahn. Musically, Book That You Like offers a softer, more elegiac side to Ebbb - fusing celestial synths, layered vocals and classical-edged guitars to an insistent beat that hints at the urgent subject matter contained within.
"This song explores the tension between introspection as art and introspection as harm," explains vocalist Will Rowland. "It’s about the way we sometimes glorify art that depicts breakdown and despair, and how immersing ourselves in that narrative can exacerbate our own cycles of rumination. Sometimes consuming material that reflects our darkness can become a feedback loop."
2024's All At Once EP marked the band's first output for Ninja Tune, home to trailblazing artists like Young Fathers, Black Country, New Road and yeule, a fitting platform for their genre-eschewing sound.
Since the EP's release last summer, Ebbb's star has only continued to rise, with live shows alongside the likes of Scaler, PVA and The Smile - the latter of whom invited to Ebbb to open for them in Switzerland - as well as appearing at Pitchfork Paris and earning a coveted slot in NME's 100 Essential Emerging Artists for 2025.
Before releasing a single song, the band, comprised of producer Lev Ceylan, vocalist Will Rowland and drummer Scott MacDonald, built a storied mythology on London’s underground live circuit with visceral, devastating performances at The Old Blue Last, Shacklewell Arms, Windmill Brixton, Sebright Arms, George Tavern and The 100 Club.
Commanding an atmosphere at gigs that So Young Magazine has described as “an almost religious experience”, the melding of Ceylan’s engulfing and enthralling production and beats, with Rowland’s endlessly capable vocals, along with MacDonald's added stomp, resulted in the band being one of the word of mouth live sensations of recent years.
Ebbb Live Dates
November
18 - London, UK - Scala *
20 - Bristol, UK - The Exchange *
21 - Southampton, UK - Heartbreakers *
22 - Brighton, UK - Green Door Store *
December
12 - Cambridge, UK - Portland Arms *
* = supporting The Orchestra (For Now)
* * *
Artist: Slowhandclap
Track: Horses in Transit
Manchester’s Slowhandclap play hard and fast. Friends since childhood, the quartet spit out a rhythmic and brutalising noise-rock venom, mish-mashing post-punk muscle and quaking synthetics for a melancholic realisation of the modern social and political dystopia. Reuniting with producer Samuel William Jones (Maruja and SLAP RASH) the band return with new single Horses in Transit.
Growing from skeletal beginnings into a muscular, noise-rock behemoth, it’s a track of winding structures and jarring changes of pace, heightened by freakish synthesisers, slugging basslines and circular riffs. It’s music that’s fighting back, that wrestles with itself, that howls for autonomy within both political and personal adversity.
Since reintroducing themselves with summer single Disarm, the band have played their first shows in London (with Stratford Rise), Europe and sell-out a headline spot at Manchester’s YES (Basement). This builds on slots opening for some of finest new names in the noise-rock/post-rock space, such YHWH Nailgun, Ditz and Psychotic Monks
Offering more on the track, vocalist/guitarist Sam Bullock says: “The lyrics to the song were written in a very transitory point of my life. Emerging from a break up and a subsequent dark period I started to feel a sense of great freedom and possibility. Though this grimly was met by the limitations of the world we live in that keep us from realising our true needs and our potential. It's about the innate freedom and desire of humanity and the economic circumstances, the crisis in housing and the state of unease in the world that often deprive us from realising it. Always in transition and never arriving.”
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and never miss out on gig info and our latest deals
Comments