FEATURE:
Spotlight
IN THIS PHOTO: Gabriella Turton (left) and Rowan Miles (right) of The Femcels/PHOTO CREDIT: Bruno Mosso
The Femcels
__________
HERE is a sensational…
and instantly memorable duo who are creating quite a lot of buzz and conversation. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton. In January, the London duo were questioned by Richard Turley for Interview. With the headline declaring/describing their music as “Holy Noise, Horny Despair and the Art of Dreaming Yourself Alive”, it is really interesting discovering how life started for The Femcels. Rather than this being a long plan and them carefully planning, there was a degree of things falling together fairly quickly. It is always hard to say how much longevity artists have when they are starting out. However, on the strength of I Have to Get Hotter, it does seem that they are going to be around for a very long time:
“The Femcels didn’t form so much as coalesce: one broken pink toy guitar, a lobby miracle, four songs recorded drunk in a single night, and suddenly London had another problem. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton (Gabi) talk like they make music—fast, feral, funny, allergic to sincerity—ricocheting between hymns, horny despair, indie nihilism, and the sacred fantasy of Pitchfork hating them. They didn’t meet online, dated the same men, stole pick-and-mix, coded homework in dark cinemas, acquired yuppie older boyfriends, posted ads for go-go dancers, and woke up to discover they were already a band. Their debut album I Have to Get Hotter, produced by Ike Clateman (Bassvictim), is out VERY SOON and easily the most exciting, deranged thing I’ve heard in ages — its tracklist reading less like songs than a series of threats: “Even Though Ur Blonde,” “She Seems Kind of Stupid (Draft),” “Please Don’t Stab Yourself Like Elliott Smith.” They skewer pop feminism, sneer at boy-run music culture, loot Catholic hymns for melodies, and flinch (briefly) at the terror of singing in front of another human. If people are going to misunderstand you anyway, the logic goes, you might as well make it unforgettable. Less an origin story than a shared hallucination, documented in real time.
The Femcels didn’t form so much as coalesce: one broken pink toy guitar, a lobby miracle, four songs recorded drunk in a single night, and suddenly London had another problem. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton (Gabi) talk like they make music—fast, feral, funny, allergic to sincerity—ricocheting between hymns, horny despair, indie nihilism, and the sacred fantasy of Pitchfork hating them. They didn’t meet online, dated the same men, stole pick-and-mix, coded homework in dark cinemas, acquired yuppie older boyfriends, posted ads for go-go dancers, and woke up to discover they were already a band. Their debut album I Have to Get Hotter, produced by Ike Clateman (Bassvictim), is out VERY SOON and easily the most exciting, deranged thing I’ve heard in ages — its tracklist reading less like songs than a series of threats: “Even Though Ur Blonde,” “She Seems Kind of Stupid (Draft),” “Please Don’t Stab Yourself Like Elliott Smith.” They skewer pop feminism, sneer at boy-run music culture, loot Catholic hymns for melodies, and flinch (briefly) at the terror of singing in front of another human. If people are going to misunderstand you anyway, the logic goes, you might as well make it unforgettable. Less an origin story than a shared hallucination, documented in real time.
RICHARD TURLEY: When did this start?
ROWAN MILES: On the 24th of February 2024, we went into the studio with no music. Just a name: The Femcels.
GABI TURTON: A month before, I was styling Maria from Bassvictim and I brought this pink toy guitar and she broke it. That night we asked Ike if he’d produce for us. The next day in our lobby, the same pink guitar appeared but fixed—it’s a sign from God.
ROWAN: We were scared, so we got really drunk. We recorded four songs in one night and they’re all on the album. Ike understood exactly what we were and made perfect beats for us in what felt like 45 seconds. We were so scared to sing in front of someone. We’d just been handed this whole thing of being musicians in one evening.
TURLEY: So, how did you meet?
ROWAN: Online. Then I saw her across the room. She had her mouth open for a really long time. Then later on you invited me to an awkward girly sleep over.
GABRIELLA: Me and my friend used to do this thing where we would invite girls we thought were cool on Instagram.
ROWAN: We realized we’d dated all the same boys.
GABRIELLA: Then she tried to set me up with her ex-boyfriend and he said he’d bring his friends to the date. I got really freaked out so I brought Rowan along.
TURLEY: Tell me about the lyrics.
ROWAN: They are just all from real life experiences. I was heartbroken and you were a Femcel. They are basically all about this relationship where I was flown out to New York by some rockstar. I was a wannabe groupie and was harnessing the musical powers of these guys through this type of science magic I invented.
TURLEY: You sat on the album for two years. Why release it now?
ROWAN: We had a manager and then we decided we were going to do this record deal and then we really decided that wasn’t what we wanted to do.
GABRIELLA: We reclaimed our indie-ness. We decided to self-publish. That’s what makes sense for us.
TURLEY: How seriously are you taking this?
GABRIELLA: It would be awesome to do music, just music, but London is really expensive. I think we both really enjoy playing shows. I’m just excited to play a show and people actually know more than two songs.
ROWAN: That’s most exciting for people to sing along. There’s two girls that want to audition to be our go-go dancers one of them has black hair and one is blonde so its kinda perfect.
PHOTO CREDIT: Max Mistry
Before ending up with a review of I Have to Get Hotter, I want to shift to an NME and their recent interview. However you want to label their music – “electro-twee-punk” is how NME define it -, it is evident there is that very strong bond between Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton. I am keen to see them live. NME stepped into The Femcels’ “idiosyncratic world as they prepare for their first headline show and reflect on their recent debut album, ‘I Have To Get Hotter”:
“So far, their instincts seem to have served them well. They started making music in 2024 after Miles, on a whim while working as a stylist, asked Bassvictim’s Ike Clateman to produce for them. On their first night working with Clateman (February 24 – they want it mythologised), they wrote four songs. They released two of these songs, ‘He Needs Me’ and ‘Not Ur Friend’, as singles, which quickly gained traction. Since then, they have performed with the likes of EsDeeKid and Fakemink, been photographed by Hedi Slimane, and opened for Frost Children. Miles has also made an album with Worldpeace DMT that’s well worth checking out. Finally, the duo released their first album, ‘I Have To Get Hotter’, in January 2026.
The album is a joyously chaotic, crude, and often hilarious look into the girls’ mirror-world. It’s a release of pure id that Miles says surprised even them: “It’s shocking when you’re writing a song and the stuff that comes out is stuff you wouldn’t say to anyone. But, it’s like: ‘I’ve written it now, and it works with the melody.’ You end up writing a song about sending a boob pic to a 45-year-old, and that’s the only way to explain your feelings.”
Turton nods: “We’re not crude in real life. I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about sex to each other. But in our music it’s all about that.”
It’s this play between shocking honesty and total absurdity, sincerity and irony, that many find so exciting about The Femcels’ music. They manage to give us hymn-like melodies, guttural screams and twee moments, with knowingly cartoonish production and a miraculously punk sensibility. Far from sarcastic vapidity, these songs belie raw emotion while remaining fun and lighthearted.
“Most of the parts I wrote on this album came from this diary I was writing because I was heartbroken,” says Miles. “I was destroyed and trying to write everything down. I was howling in the house, and it must have been really annoying for everyone else.”
“It’s nice to make things into a joke instead of feeling sad,” adds Turton. “Not to sound like a wet tissue, but the music did heal me a bit. I actually was kind of a femcel when I started making the album, and now I’m kind of not.”
“It’s nice to make things into a joke instead of feeling sad. The music did heal me a bit” – Gabriella Turton
The term ‘femcel’ typically refers to female members of the ‘involuntary celibate’ community. It’s often used ironically, but some who identify with it can be quite protective about the label. The girls say they’ve received hundreds of comments accusing them of being ‘cosplayers’, ‘LARPers’ or ‘fakecels’.
“The project isn’t supposed to be taken too seriously; you should just enjoy it,” says Turton. “But also, I think a lot of the people giving us hate in the comments might relate to [the album], and maybe they should listen to it… Like with the body dysmorphia stuff. In popular media, it’s meant to be that you’re just effortlessly skinny; no one ever really talks about it. Lily Allen talks about it, and I remember thinking that was really cool. I think it’s important to show that people do think about it, and are stressed about it, and you’re not just in your own head”.
I Have to Get Hotter is one of the most distinct, best and important debut albums of this year. An act we are going to gearing from years from now. CLASH sat down with an amazing album and provided their views. For anyone who has not heard their music really needs to get involved and check it out:
“A London duo whose stated ambition in life is to make music Pitchfork will hate, The Femcels aren’t people you should take too seriously. Or is that a pre-conception? Debut album ‘I Have To Get Hotter’ thrives on confusion, a kind of meta-post-ironic feast of sincere insincerity, a project packed with eye-searing colour and fuelled in equal doses by eye-liner and one-liners. It’s funny, occasionally cruel, and ridiculously filthy – truly, what else do you want from pop stars?
The song titles alone are worth the price of entry. ‘No One Will F*ck Me When I Wear Two Different Shoes’ gasps the breath out of your lungs and ‘Please Don’t Stab Yourself (Like Elliot Smith)’ is staggeringly close to the bone. Yet, somehow, they skirt around bad taste and come through unscathed – it’s a record packed with ideas, and held together by some wicked melodies.
At times, 00s indie pop shines through – the Juno soundtrack reworked with a pair of dodgy Casio keyboards and a cracked version of Fruity Loops. Working within their limitations, The Femcels are content to break any rule going – if they run out of words, they simply shriek and scream.
Forever self-referential and self-deprecating, songs like ‘Indiest Girl At School’ and ‘Monster In You’ are endlessly fascinating, while the beeps and sonic burps which fuel the spiteful ‘Not ur friend’ are worthy of those early PC Music uploads on SoundCloud, or even the unjustly overlooked Kero Kero Bonito.
Scrappy, brash, and devoutly punk, it’s done and dusted in 33 minutes. Utilising brevity to pack a punch, one song is a smidge over 90 seconds – it’s as though their TikTok-addled imaginations will self-destruct is the concept of a middle eight is mentioned.
Brutally funny and remarkably imaginative, ‘I Have To Get Hotter’ is brattish, attention-seeking, and at times ridiculous. The Femcels are out there on their own – this album is a riot”.
I guess still seen as a new or rising duo, The Femcels seem like they will dominate festivals very soon. As they produce more work, their fanbase will grow and there will be this increased demand. I Have to Get Hotter is a phenomenal album. Go and follow them now. All the hype and love around them is…
MORE than justified.
___________
Follow The Femcels
