Next week The Coathangers kick off their European tour in support of new album, The Devil You Know, which was released earlier this year on Suicide Squeeze. To celebrate, the band have shared a new video for one of the album's stand-out tracks, ‘Stranger Danger’.

Vocalist and drummer Stephanie Luke says, “‘Stranger Danger’ is a song about avoiding the negative people in one’s life, like when your mother used to tell you “stranger danger!” so you wouldn’t go off with the bad guys. The video is dark with flashes of light (actual flashlights) to invoke that feeling of the unknown. Then we have our ever so good sport of a friend and album artwork artist/frequent collaborator Scott Montoya, whom we’ve kidnapped and continue to “terrorize” throughout the video, so we in fact have become the dangerous strangers. This was one of our favourites to make with our amazingly talented videographer Matt Odom, enjoy!”

From calling out US gun legislation on ‘F The NRA’ to addressing addiction on ‘Step Back’, The Devil You Know leaves no room to doubt that, ten years in, they're still one of the most vital and truth-seeking punk bands around. The album title stems from an old adage whispered at a friend’s wedding; we settle when we’re afraid of the unknown. It’s a theme that runs through every song on the album, and even though the band insists they were writing songs about other peoples’ pain, they acknowledge that the old saying applies to their band as well. We get comfortable, we get scared, and we refuse to change. But with The Devil You Know, The Coathangers lost their fear, and that allowed them to shed the baggage of the past. “Why are we living in these cells we built for ourselves?” Kugel asks. “That’s been the great thing about this record. It’s been honest and confrontational… but not in a shitty way.”

The Coathangers European live dates:

April 24 - Brighton, England @ The Latest Music Bar

April 25 - London, England @ Studio 9294

April 27 - Leicester, England @ The Cookie

April 28 - Glasgow, Scotland @ SWG Poetry Club

April 29 - Manchester, England @ Soup Kitchen

April 30 - Liverpool, England @ Arts Club (Loft)

May 01 - Leeds, England @ The Key Club

London-based bedroom pop artist and producer Jessica Winter has shared the video for her debut single, ‘Sleep Forever’, the first to be taken from her upcoming EP, Let’s Keep It Shallow. The video sees sultry and foreboding visuals accompany the haunting and ethereal trap-laced gothic-pop tones which permeate the track, while Jessica dances mysteriously through surreal and dread-inducing darkness.

Jessica says, “My friend Nan Moore is a director but the idea for the video came from her clubbing, covered in wires. She has a heart condition and has it monitored for seven day periods quite regularly. The blue patches become UV in a club, it looks a bit like a bomb – such a belligerent visual of a broken heart! In that moment we thought that the image looked how the song felt. The shoot was ridiculous, not only did we have zero budget but the monitor was meant to be on her, reading her heart so we only had a few five minute bursts to get it off of her, onto me and go for a take. I don’t know what happened in that moment but I’m now having my heart monitored. At least we got the video. All power to the NHS and no budget filmmaking.”

 Both a thrilling producer and songwriter, Jessica has emerged from her bedroom studio in Brixton, developing a lustrous and unique sound derived from a diverse teenage soundscape. With influences spanning multiple genres including artists such as Barbara Streisand, Madonna, Nick Cave and Siouxsie & The Banshees to Death Grips, Lil Peep, Marilyn Manson and Twenty One Pilots, she began bringing her music ideas to life with little more than a cheap microphone, a laptop and a second hand piano.

The result is an extraordinary collection of songs that will feature on the debut EP, due out in September this year. It’s a piece of work that smashes the modern beats and lackadaisical vocals of US cloud rap with techno, grime and at least three decades of pop. It’s music to make you feel uncomfortable and provoke serious anxiety in those with a desire to neatly categorise their listening habits.

Jessica’s appreciation for other art forms and the ability to use it to support important causes has seen her launch the Hate The Haus club nights in London. It showcases other creatives from live music, indie film, spoken word, performance art and more and brings them together as a community to spread awareness of a particular issue such as plastic waste, climate change, animal extinction and more.

LIVE DATES

May 30th  – Pumphuset, Copenhagen (headline)

June 2nd  – Sodern Teatern, Stockholm (supporting Death Grips)

June 7th  – Field Day, London