TRACK REVIEW: IDER - embarrassed — Music Musings & Such

TRACK REVIEW:

IDER

PHOTO CREDIT: @danikm

embarrassed

9.4/10

The track, embarrassed, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWBsgXvXHSg

GENRES:

Indie Rock/Electropop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The album, shame, Is available here:

https://weareider.bandcamp.com/album/shame

LABEL:

IDER

TRACKLISTING:

Cross Yourself

cbb to b sad

Knocked Up

obsessed

BORED

waiting 17 03

embarrassed

Midland’s Guilt

__________

THIS time around…

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniela K Monteiro

I am spending some reviewing time with a duo that I have been supporting for a little while now. London’s IDER consist of Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville. They have just put out their acclaimed second album, shame. I will come to that soon enough and a track from the album that I wish to explore more. Before then, I want to take things back and look at how IDER got started. There is great chemistry and connection between Markwick and Somerville. As this Gig Goer interview from earlier this year explains, the stage is a very important arena for IDER:

“Somerville and Markwick began their musical relationship during university, songwriting and playing acoustic gigs under the name Lily & Meg. Despite the shutdown of the touring industry in 2020, they still consider performance one of the sustaining pillars in their creative process.

“The stuff that we talk about in our songs… I feel it’s important for us to share that with people and understand other people’s experiences. A massive part of feeling connected to [our] music is living it through other people,” Somerville says.

There’s a fine-tuned synchronicity to the way Somerville and Markwick interact on stage, weaving energy out of thin air and taking strength from the other’s presence. Their songs contain mesmerizing harmonies that provide a guiding heartbeat throughout their catalog. Here are two individuals, immensely talented in their own right, coming together to form the cohesive listening experience that is IDER. This utterly breathtaking dynamic extends into a visual space, powerfully showcased in their music video for Mirror, linked below”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

It is great to see how successful IDER are now and the sort of fanbase they have! There is no doubting the fact they are one of the country’s best groups. A phenomenal duo whose music has a unique edge, I think we are going to hear a lot more from IDER in the future. When The Independent spoke with them to promote their debut album, Emotional Education, in 2019, we learn more about Markwick and Somerville’s meeting. There is a closeness and sisterly bond between them that comes through when you hear their music:

“While still students, the pair became regulars on the Cornwall gig circuit. But by the time they graduated, choices had to be made. At the urging of a manager they had met locally, the pair moved to Markwick’s native London (Somerville is from the Midlands), where they began working with producers and were eventually signed.

The two now share a two-bedroom flat they describe as “glorious chaos”, one that is overflowing in creativity, improvisation and ideas. It sounds a bit like something out of Homeland, with bits of paper taped haphazardly across every surface, only instead of elaborate conspiracies scrawled over them, they’re lyrics about absent fathers, childhood nostalgia and good sex. “One room is stuffed with all of our clothes and the other with all our instruments and is our studio,” Markwick explains. “It’s just a lot of sh*t everywhere, but it’s great. And we wrote the whole album in there!”

Both women wrote the entirety of Emotional Education themselves, and they’ve developed a fruitful back-and-forth. Many tracks begin as solo endeavours, inspired by personal experiences and feelings, before the pair come together at a certain point in a song’s development to help edit and shape.

“Part of the collaboration is knowing when to step back and let the other person run with something,” says Somerville. “We write a lot separately,” adds Markwick, “but we’ll also act as editors for one another, and ask the right questions to push each other further. We understand each other’s language in a way”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Bridgland

Not to labour too heavily on the subject of the connection and harmony between Markwick and Somerville. I feel it is a key dynamic. Before I move on to a new topic, there is another interview that I want to drop in. Back in 2018, the duo spoke with NME about how their friendship is essential to their music. It is central to what makes them gel and bond so closely. As they explain, not only is the chemistry central to everything they do; the importance of harmonisation extends to every live performance:

“How important is your personal chemistry when you’re writing and performing?

Lily: I think that chemistry is everything. I would say it’s the most important thing. It’s at the centre and the heart of what we do. The strength of that is what creates everything that we create. When that is at its strongest is when we create the best stuff and perform the best.

And how does it feel to share that in a live context?

Megan: It feels great, but we’ll often perform imagining the audience isn’t there. That sounds like such a cliche, but it’s so important. The audience could be there or not, but we’d still be vibing off each other and focusing on each other to make the harmony as strong as possible. As an audience member that’s what I’d want to see. I’d want to imagine that if I wasn’t there, that would still be happening”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rory James

I said I would move on to a new topic, though this one is fairly similar in nature. I feel some bands and duos sound a little flat because there isn’t a great connection or sense of trust. One feels that they are on different pages and, perhaps, are lacking a degree of trust. There is an innate and strong understanding between Markwick and Somerville that is hard to ignore. In this interview from last year, the duo explain how they built a sense of trust:

“You’re connected with each other when it comes to music. In what other ways are you connected with each other?

Megan: We’re very good friends and have the same sense of humor. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind and is probably the most important one. When you have a long working relationship, you have to be able to laugh with one another. We can also finish each others sentences and pick up vibes. We’re a little bit witchy.

How did you build that trust in one another when it comes to performing?

Megan: We practiced with that trust challenge where you have to catch each other when falling backwards and then she dropped me. No, for real. What do we do?

Lily: There was definitely a natural chemistry when we first met and sang together. Performing is something we both loved doing individually, and when we met we really had that strong connection, so it was natural taking it into our performance space. The more our friendship and work accumulation had developed, the more our songwriting and performance became better. That all goes hand in hand. When you write, there’s an element of trust and understanding the movement or dynamic between each of us. There’s a lot of looking in the eyes, which comes from singing and writing together”.

I am keen to progress to IDER’s debut album and talk about that a little before coming onto their new work. Before I move along, there is an interview from The Line of Best Fit that provides something interesting. Markwick and Somerville discuss how lockdown has inspired some of their music. We also learn of the new ‘IDER 2.0’ phase and evolution:

“The secret to this friendship is trust and communication,” says Markwick. “Who we are in our music is based around our friendship and the fact we can be so honest with each other. So, when we’re making music, we bring out the best in each other.”

Somerville and Markwick are speaking to Best Fit via Zoom from their shared London flat. It’s a setting that will, of course, be familiar if you’ve seen the enchanting video for the duo’s comeback single “Saturday”, released back in October. Directed by their longtime friend and collaborator Lewis Knaggs, the video, filmed in their basement, was a haunting, claustrophobic affair, perfectly capturing the song’s themes of lockdown-induced anxiety.

As well as being 2020’s finest lockdown-inspired song, “Saturday” also marked the arrival of what the duo describes as “IDER 2.0”. “It’s still us,” says Markwick. “We’re not starting from scratch. This is the next chapter for us. We feel like we have a real ownership over what we’re doing, more than ever. We co-produced and mixed everything, we’re releasing the new record independently. It’s a really exciting time.”

What’s remarkable is how “IDER 2.0” actually began in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Back in February 2020, Somerville and Markwick, having finally completed the lengthy touring commitments for their debut Emotional Education, had no immediate plans beyond letting their collective hair down. They booked flights to their favourite hedonist capital, Berlin, and arranged to stay at a friend’s flat. For three weeks, at least, the duo had, they fondly recall, “an amazing time. We went out every night. Met so many people. We wrote loads of new music. It was really inspiring”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

Following their 2017 E.P., Gut Me Like an Animal, came the 2019 debut album, Emotional Education. Although IDER are keen to explain how they have moved on from that album in a sense, it is an important one. Emotional Education was one of my favourite albums of 2019. It was when I first discovered IDER. Coming back to that interview from The Independent, one discovers how the themes and lyrics on the album spoke to the realities of being twentysomethings:

“Both acknowledge the industry’s compulsion to conceal the less glamorous aspects of emerging stardom, but to not talk about their day jobs would clash with their very identities as artists. Emotional Education, the pair’s debut LP, is a gorgeous, lived-in ode to twenty-something ennui, built on the remnants of bad relationships, toxic parental figures and very millennial feelings of angst, restlessness and dissatisfaction.

Lyrically personal yet universal in its emotional reach, the record puts into words a generation’s worth of self-doubt and uncertainty. Standout tracks like “Mirror” and “Clinging to the Weekend” explore the highs and lows of becoming lost in a relationship, while “Saddest Generation” and “You’ve Got Your Whole Life Ahead of You, Baby” attempt to reckon with mental health, depression and perpetual unease in a world full of older people insisting we ought to get over it. “It’s a coming of age record,” Markwick explains. “It’s our early adulthood in one album”.

I think that last line is relevant: the debut from this promising duo was about their early adulthood experience and exploration. It is a brilliant debut that garnered a lot of positive reviews. It definitely brought more attention to their music. Since then, a lot has happened in terms of their sound and lyrical approach.

I will come on to shame when I can. I am sticking with Emotional Education for a bit longer. IDER spoke with Bristol in Stereo in 2019. Whilst, as the article states, Emotional Education did not provide big answers or truths to life’s upheavals, it was very truthful in terms of the friendship between Markwick and Somerville:

“The self-professed “sisters”, who met while studying Popular Music at Falmouth University in 2012, have long reckoned with the idea that songwriting is about more than just making music. The themes explored in Emotional Education have been natural reactions to, or the retellings of, their own life stories.

“There was never any set intention of what the album would be about,” Somerville continues. “I think, in the sense that the music that we write is based so much on our friendship – and how we are able to be so honest with each other – this is how we’re also able to be so honest in our music. That’s essential. So [the album] was always going to be real and honest and raw. We really pushed for that.”

If Somerville and Markwick’s songs on Emotional Education don’t provide solutions to life’s upheavals, such as the repercussions of having an absent father on ‘Busy Being a Rockstar’ or helping a friend who’s struggling with their mental health on ‘Clinging to the Weekend’ – not that it’s incumbent on them to do so anyway – then it’s at least a companion for turbulent times. It’s especially so in the context of young adulthood. Are the anxieties of the so-called ‘quarter-life crisis’, something they’ve discussed much among themselves and their friends?

“Yes, and the question I often ask is: is [this anxiety] particular to our generation?” Somerville says. “Or does it just appear to be because it seems like the last generation have all got it sorted? I don’t know. But I do think that we’re at a point now in Western culture where we just have so much choice and so much opportunity and it’s crippling. Particularly with social media. There are so many options, there’s so much freedom, but also so much pressure to be something and achieve something and be a certain way,” she says. “I do think it’s like quite a difficult time to be young and figure out who you are in that kind of setting. It’s not just about survival anymore. It’s about, like, ‘who are you?’ and ‘what are you going to do for the world?’”

Much of this examination of identity rears its head in IDER’s single, ‘Mirror’, which was released last October and features on the album. Born of a relationship breakdown, the chorus lyrics read: “I keep looking in the mirror, ’til I see myself, I see myself […] I wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t like the stranger in the bathroom light”.

I feel lockdown has been different for every artist. Some have found it beneficial in terms of how they write and what they have got from it. Others have found it very hard. All can agree that it has been very disruptive and turbulent. DORK caught up with IDER in April 2020 to see how the (at that point early) lockdown was affecting them and their music:

“Have you had a chance to think about new music at all? It must be easier now we’re all on lockdown.

Lockdown has actually been pretty mental – we were staying at a friend’s place in Berlin after tour, and both caught coronavirus so had to quarantine out there. It was intense! We’re back in London now and yeah singing together, as always, is keeping us sane.

Are you able to write and record songs while at home? What’s your set up like?

We have a cute set up in our bedroom which we’ve had for a while, where we can rehearse, write and demo.

How has self-isolating impacted you guys so far? Have you had to cancel much?

It’s definitely been tough; we’ve both experienced our mental health taking a knock. We have not become bakers, fitness fanatics, fine artists and have avoided IG Live like the plague, so we’re battling with daily feelings of guilt. But feel very grateful to have each other and discovered a new level of compatibility. We were due to support Tegan and Sara across NA this summer and unfortunately that has been cancelled”.

Coming back to that earlier Gig Goer interview, IDER discussed how their music had changed since Emotional Education. Perhaps the fact the duo co-produced shame accounts for that shift:

“The shift to a more internal music-making process is a fascinating development. “Our way of working has evolved in favor of this situation,” Somerville points out. 2019’s Emotional Education is an absolutely gorgeous debut album, playing into the duo’s strengths of vocal harmonies, pulsing beats and dreamy soundscapes. shame differs by playing into the strengths of a more self-sufficient version of IDER. “The biggest difference is that we’ve co-produced [shame]. It just feels and sounds—even more than our first record—like us. It has a really strong sense of IDER and what that sounds like. I think that’s probably quite natural, you grow into your own sound,” Markwick says.

“We’ve really enjoyed that process and creatively we’ve felt very free in saying what we want to say, in things sounding how we want them to sound.”

Somerville and Markwick are unapologetic, blunt and confident. It is apparent in their presence on stage and off, and there’s a beautiful assurance to their shared experiences and working relationship. It comes to the surface through deeply personal lyrics, yet another key difference from their earlier days as Lily & Meg. “We’d often dodge the actual point… because maybe we weren’t as confident in what we want[ed] to say,” Markwick adds.

“With [Emotional Education] we were quite obsessed with the ‘right’ way of doing things. It also came from a fear of ‘this is the first album we’ve ever made.’ This time around it definitely feels much more like: ‘fuck it, this is how we want it; this is how we want it to sound and it sounds good to us.’ It definitely feels like the most IDER yet.”

Finally, IDER 2.0 is upon us. We were treated to a stripped down performance of Cross Yourself, lead single off of shame, at this year’s virtual SXSW music festival. With additional production by Salka Valsdóttir (Daughters of Reykjavík, CYBER), the single’s strongest feature is the gorgeous juxtaposition of flowing harmonies alongside punchy lyrical and percussive elements. “Cross Yourself is a reflection on how we search for purpose,” IDER shares, “how we often attach meaning to things or like the idea of something external to believe in, in exchange for believing in ourselves.”

IDER are owning their art and taking responsibility for their message. shame will be their second album, but it will also be their first free from the industry-imposed limitations that can come from working with a major label. With any creative endeavor there is risk. It is this risk—along with IDER’s self-assuredness, vulnerability and openness—that has us grasping for more, unable to let go”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins

I am getting closer to the actual review itself. I feel it is important to give some background and lead-up to where a particular artist is now. It provides context and greater depth that allows us better understanding. Coming back to that interview from The Line of Best Fit, and there is a section that relates to social media. The duo discuss why they cut back their social media interaction during lockdown:

“The subject of shame pops up again, inevitably, as the duo discuss their relationship with social media. Ambivalent about social media at the best of times (they’ve spoken candidly about its impact upon their mental health), Somerville and Markwick, over the past year of lockdown, had firmly cut back on their online activity.

“During the lockdown, we tried our best to cut down on social media,” says Somerville. “You poke your head in for a few minutes and it’s just incredibly overwhelming. I read something Matt Haig said about this, about how this constant bombardment of information is so unhealthy. It’s like there’s this enormous event in the media every day, ten times a day. He was asking how are we supposed to initiate change when we’re constantly being hit by new information, new traumas, 24 hours a day? I agree. It’s like we’re all in this constant state of adrenaline, and not in a real state, as humans, to create change. Last summer, when all the protests and online campaigns happened around Black Lives Matter, it did feel like a real change, like a genuine shift. But the fear is that something new can quite quickly take its space. How much long-term change can we make when the nature of social media is so fast, so based around our short attention spans?”

All this talk about the online world leads, inevitably, to IDER’s craving for the real world. It’s been well over a year since the duo played their last official live show, wrapping up their Emotional Education tour in Dublin. For all their reputation as a great recording outfit, a band that treat the studio as their musical playground, IDER have always been a most formidable live proposition. During the writing and recording of shame, it was the prospect of playing those songs live, when normality resumed, that really motivated the duo”.

It is noticeable how there is a new direction with shame. I feel it natural that every artist changes between their first and second albums. It is a sense of curiosity I suppose; not wanting to stand still and repeat what you did first off. Perhaps lockdown and the pandemic accelerated IDER’s sense of autonomy and independence. Once more coming to that interview from The Line of Best Fit, Markwick explains how IDER have shifted and grown since their debut:

“As Markwick alluded to earlier, it’s a collection of songs marked by a newfound sense of autonomy and ownership. Both in a business sense (it’s being released independently, with distribution from Believe) and, of course, from a musical perspective. All written, recorded and co-produced by the duo (with additional production from Salka Valsdóttir), shame builds upon their debut’s sleek synth-pop blueprint whilst adding layers of thunderclap percussion, tropical pop exuberance and dense, quixotic soundscapes.

“We felt we could be more experimental this time, especially with the production,” says Markwick. “I think that’s only natural, for a band to gradually grow into their sound and become more sure of their identity. When you’re making your debut, you can become focused on doing things the right way. This time, though, we felt free to go wherever we wanted. If something sounded right to us, we just went with it.”

IDER have been very much vindicated in trusting their own instincts. Much like their debut, it’s a record that rewards with repeated listens – especially in the lyrical department. At once intimate and expansive, these songs will resonate with anyone who’s ever felt cripplingly insecure in the first flushes of love (“Embarrassed”), is searching for purpose (new single “Cross Yourself”), or who’s struggled to reconcile with their youthful idealism (“Knocked Up”)”.

Even though it is not the song I am reviewing from shame, I feel BORED is a very important one. As we discover in this article from Beats Per Minute, the track arose from a sense of frustration with the music industry:

“‘BORED’ was written in a stream of consciousness when we were feeling particularly pissed off with the music industry; all of the lip service and the many cooks in the kitchen having an opinion for the sake of it. But on a more general level, the song addresses areas of corporate power, false advertising and the wider issue of ‘perfection’ and control. The chorus acts as a relief with the line “won’t you fail with me” – our mantra to embrace failure in order to succeed.”

Underscored by a rattling and rolling drum line, Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville take the opportunity to reel off all the things that’ve been pissing them off, a bit like Bob Dylan in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or R.E.M. in “It’s The End of the World…”, but with a contemporary pop flair. From the personal (“I’m bored of my phone and the way I use it”), to the political (“I’m bored of the way we think we’re saving the planet”) to the trivial (“I’m bored of the coffee I buy at the station”), and many clearly aimed at music industry professionals they’ve experienced, too (“I’m bored of the wages you stuff up your nose”), they present a breathless list of modern pressure points. Despite the audible sneer in their delivery, they never raise their voices above ice cool, generating more power and presence with each new item. This tension breaks in the free-fall chorus, where they step back for a moment, collect themselves, and simply sing “won’t you fail with me?” Given all the stresses they’ve just laid out, it’s a mightily alluring proposition”.

I am going to move it on and review embarrassed. It is my favourite song from shame. I think it is one of the most honest and striking tracks from the album. One can clearly envisage the scenes being sung on embarrassed. I really like the introduction to the song. There is an electronic pulse that sort of sounds like a guitar mixed with a sitar. It is an unexpected flavour that hooks you in. I was not expecting that sort of start! With a great percussive beat underneath, there is such richness and layers to the introduction. That sound continues as the first verse comes in. The words come out as a flow; almost stream of consciousness. The delivery is quite breathy and sensual, yet there is a sense of anxiety lingering underneath: “How much of my clothes can I take off?/How much of my body can I show you?/I don't wanna waste this moment in case you like me/But I'm scared I'll make you go and/You're looking amazing in your Friday night best/And I'm thinking 'bout dropping the cards from my chest/When they call last orders and it's time to go home”. After that verse has been delivered, a trippy and almost Trip-Hop beat emerges. The line “Don’t leave me alone” is sung twice…though there is a gap between each line. Following the first verse – where there were no big gaps and it had its own tone -, that line is punctuated and seems to be of the utmost importance. Not being left alone. Seizing this moment and not wanting things to go wrong. One can feel a real sense of emotion and need in that single line! By singing it twice, it is reinforced. The second time it is performed, one feels even more of a punch and sense of gravitas.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rory James

I am not sure who this person is that the heroine meets. Is this a friend or someone that means a lot, or is it a first-time encounter with someone who is quite intoxicating? The second verse provides some clarity. It does appear that this person has been in the frame for a little while now. The combination of intimacy, fear, desire and hesitation creates this incredible mood and sense of tension: “How much of the truth can I tell you?/How much of the mystery is part of the game?/You've been the top of my favourite for so long now/But suddenly I feel like I don't know your name and/I wanna slip these words right out of my lips/How I'm thinkin' 'bout droppin' the pants from my hips/I can't count the timеs I've imagined this”. It seems like there is this transitional need. Someone who has been a friend for a while is now being seen in a different light. The vocal gets a little lighter and hotter as this declaration is delivered: “I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor/I don't wanna feel embarrassed/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”. Quite a lot of story and background is packed in. We get a real sense of this complicated situation. Two people in different places. You are hoping that there is some sort of breakthrough.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

One definitely get a sense of history between the two: “I'm so shy at saying goodbye when I really care, I think I'd rather die/And I never knew what baggage was until I said it was over before I tried/I'm so annoyed I'm shouting about this, why can't I put my heart where my mouth is?/I see your face in the crowd you look so embarrassed/Fuck is this the first time you're hearing about it?/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”. The vocals for the aforementioned section, again, have a different sound. I like how we get these different passages. Rather than repeat the vocal sound and feel, each verse has its own feel. Darker and more sensual than anything that came before, one can feel this real sense of movement and emotion. After delivering the lines “I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”, there is another change. Those lines have processed vocals and repeated like a mantra. As the chorus, we get the sense that things as they are stressful and not working. This palpable need to find satisfaction and end the tension. One is gripped until the end. I wonder how things worked out and whether they got together? I really like embarrassed. It is a brilliant song from IDER’s…