Tucked away in their Oxford studio, UK-band Low Island have been carefully honing a unique
combination of stirring electronics, explosive indie and infectious pop across 2 albums and a host
of EPs. It’s a balance they’ve been devotedly fine-tuning over the years, releasing everything on
their own label, Emotional Interference, with their 3rd album – bird – due May 29th, 2025.
Described by the band as ‘a love letter to a wasted 20s,’ debut If You Could Have It All Again
found champions in Zane Lowe (‘incredible band’) and Rolling Stone, who praised their
marriage of ‘pop instinct with avant garde ambition.’ The album reached #17 in the UK
Downloads Charts, #5 in the UK Independent Charts and featured a track on the FIFA
Soundtrack.
Follow up Life In Miniature looked over 3 years of seismic life changes – of leaving home,
losing loved ones and falling in love – presenting a ‘beautiful tapestry’ of ‘lyrical gut punches
and life-affirming sonic uplift’ (Gigwise), with a live schedule including their first EU headline
tour, SXSW, and dates with Hot Chip, Friendly Fires, Django Django and TEED. 6music’s
Chris Hawkin’s described the album as ‘beautifully produced,’ with Radio1’s Jack Saunder’s
praising its ‘stunning’ songs.
Their 3rd album, bird, promises to be their most ambitious yet. Produced by one of their musical
heroes, Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor (Solange, Terrible Records, Moses Sumney), and
recorded at the legendary La Frette Studios (Arctic Monkeys, Nick Cave), bird is an album
that sees the disparate influences and personalities of Low Island pushed to their extremes. Here,
Jay’s guitars and synths screech with unhinged anger as much as they wail with anguish;
Lively’s bass dances frantically whilst swimming underneath the songs with an effortless beauty;
Higginbottom’s drums are as deft as they are punishing; Posada’s voice as frail as it is resilient.
These emotional polarities speak to the heart of bird; a coming to terms with the overwhelming
breadth of experience in the modern world, trapped as we are in our own bodies. How do we act
in the face of this? Do we try to reach beyond ourselves? Wish to be saved or transformed?
Retreat inwards? Or embrace things as they are? These are the questions that haunt the record in
its search for freedom and presence.