A song that’s all about making fresh starts, taking risks, and writing new chapters; this timely release opens the new year with a tantalising glimpse into the Manchester band’s next studio album, Protagonists, which arrives on 31 March (via Kind Violence Records).
Pulling a handbrake turn on the serene electronica of previous single ‘Mary In The Black And White Room’, Ist Ist’s follow-up act kicks things up another gear altogether. Driven by piston-like percussives and veering guitar lines that accelerate headlong into oblivion, ‘Something Has To Give’ is a shot of pure adrenaline that rushes and dissipates all too soon.
Offering a cryptic synopsis of the new single, frontman Adam Houghton says:
“’Something Has To Give’ is all about new beginnings. It’s a sort of stick or twist situation. Do you settle or go for it?”
Before we wave adieu to 2022 – IST IST – pause for reflection with the philosophical: ‘Mary In The Black And White Room’.
This new single arrives as the Manchester post/punk frontrunners also confirm a series of UK headline shows for April 2023, with dates in Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, Birmingham, Bristol and London. Tickets will be on sale this Wednesday (7t December) at 10AM here.
A reminder of their keenly-anticipated third album ‘Protagonists’ (slated for Spring 2023 via Kind Violence Records), the track finds the band revealing one of its most cerebral, synth-driven moments.
With shades of classic OMD, The Cure and New Order, ‘Mary In The Black And White Room’ effervesces in the darkness with its potent blend of layered synthesisers, darting basslines, and labyrinthine lyrical intrigue.
“Mary…” is inspired by a thought experiment proposed by the philosopher Frank Jackson that has since become known as ‘the knowledge argument’ (or ‘Mary’s room’). Hypothesising the work of a scientist called Mary, who exists in a black and white world where she has extensive access to physical descriptions of colour, but no actual human perceptual experience of colour; Jackson’s theory wonders whether Mary will gain new knowledge if she actually experiences seeing colour.
Speaking about the track, IST IST’s Adam Houghton says:
“Mary in the Black and White Room is about trying to figure out if experience trumps knowledge. See ‘the Knowledge Argument’ where the subject, Mary, exists in a black and white world but has extensive descriptions of colour, but you don’t know if she knows what they actually look like until exposed to it. Really interesting stuff.”
Absorbed by themes explored in Jackson’s theory of physicalism, IST IST create an unconventional love-song-of-sorts. As if reaching out from another dimension, frontman Adam Houghton delivers a cascade of cryptic couplets and non sequiturs in his rich baritone, looking to add colour to a world that could be so much more than monochrome.
The single arrives with an official lyric video created by Shaolin Pete, which elegantly reflects the themes explored in ‘Mary in the Black and White Room’. Watch it here:
Delivering a resolute punch with an acerbic sting in its tale, new single ‘Stamp You Out’ sees the Manchester band return to the spotlight with commanding form and typically uncompromising style.
From its blistering post/punk guitar lines to its punishing percussives, ‘Stamp You Out’ creates an impending atmosphere of anxiety throughout. With Adam Houghton’s trademark baritone vocal booming with all the force of an omnipotent autocrat at the lectern of a police state; it makes for a powerful statement of intent that instantly envelops listeners back into the shadow-strewn world of IST IST. Speaking about ‘Stamp You Out’, Houghton says:
“[Stamp You Out] tips its hat to the previous IST IST where the modus operandi was to try and make an impact in the most forceful way; pounding drums and bass and repetitive lyrics. I remember watching a news report where a politician, whose name I forget, just kept saying: ‘we need to stamp this out’. I was thinking ‘we need to stamp you out’, so I wrote an aggressive fight song and a call to arms about it.”
The single is accompanied by an official video that sees the band deliver a voltaic performance of the track against a flurry of incandescent lights. Watch it here:
AA
Of the video Keating adds: “We felt like the track is a straightforward rock song which required a straightforward video and we didn’t want to over-embellish the visual aspect. For existing IST IST fans, it re-affirms what we’re all about, and for anyone new it tells you everything you need to know.”
The new single is also accompanied by the announcement of IST IST’s third studio album Protagonists, out 31 March 2022 via Kind Violence Records. After securing their status as one of Manchester’s most exciting acts with their 2020 debut Architecture, and then consolidating the title with its 2021 follow-up The Art of Lying; new album Protagonists arrives as something of a new dawn for the four-piece. As Andy Keating says:
“This was our first straightforward album, which sounds strange given it’s the third one. Our first album was a little bit of a back catalogue, and the rest was written in the same vein to have a coherent record. The second album was a stab in the dark and written and recorded during lockdown restrictions, but it broke us into the top 100. ‘Protagonists’ feels like the first album where there’s no pressure.”
An album all about new beginnings, with a nod to the trials and tribulations of love, tricky family relationships and the feeling of being trapped by the past, ‘Protagonists’ arrives as an attestation to a band sure of their own identity. With the time and space to experiment in order to solidify their own sound, Keating adds:
“We originally started just exploring sounds and textures which appealed to us, and it evolved into fully-fledged songwriting. There are some elements which hark back to our ballsy days of a heavy sound, but we feel like this is a band expressing themselves how they want to.”
Owing its title to songwriter Adam Houghton’s magpie-like method of writing, Protagonists finds the frontman taking prominent characters that have caught his imagination, whether fictional or non-fictional, and transplanting them into dystopian worlds with new and uncertain outcomes. As Hougton explains: “My process has always been taking inspiration from everything around me including but not limited to TV, Books, Movies, Newspaper, Articles on Wikipedia, Crime Documentaries etc. I then use these sources to craft fictitious stories around an imagined persona. The title ‘Protagonists” seemed to work with this method.”
Blurring the lines between fact and fiction and traversing a broad spectrum of genres, tracks like “Nothing More Nothing Less” — a “simple love song written from a woman’s perspective” — take on a gauzy and ethereal pop-tinted quality, while slightly more menacing moments like “Fool’s Paradise” and “Trapdoors” find closer alignment with the band’s brooding, brazen rock roots.
From future favourites like “Something Has To Give”, a jittering guitar track about “a stick or twist situation”, to fully fitted-out classics like the anthemic “Emily” (a live fixture from the band’s earliest days, which has finally found its place on this record), ‘Protagonists’ will provide plenty to pore over for fans new and old.
Recorded and mixed by Michael Whalley and IST IST at Milkshed Studios, the album was mastered by the legendary Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound (The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol). A compulsive, character-driven record from a band hitting their creative zenith, IST IST will release ‘Protagonists’ in Spring of 2023.
To mark the release, IST IST will be playing a special hometown launch show for the new record at the Manchester Ritz in March next year – details below. There will also be a small preview tour before the end of 2022, with dates in London, Birmingham and Hebden Bridge. Standby for further UK live dates soon.
IST IST UK LIVE SHOWS
NOVEMBER 2022
3/11 O2 Academy 2, Islington, 4/11 The Rainbow, Birmingham, 25/11 Trades Club, Hebden Bridge (Sold out)
Aural Aggravation 