Headed by Duarte-Holman and bassist and producer Fraser Rieley, ALASKALASKA formed in 2016 after Duarte-Holman introduced Rieley to her friends Calum Duncan (guitarist), Fraser Smith (saxophonist), and Gethin Jones (drummer). The resulting recordings - early self-titled EP and 2018 singles ‘Meateater’ and ‘Monster’ - combined an appreciation for pop songwriting form with a myriad of sounds, tastes and styles. ALASKALASKA’s idiosyncratic approach grabbed them attention from Pitchfork, The FADER, Noisey, NME, DIY, BBC Radio 1 and beyond, while support slots with fellow genre-dodgers Alvvays, Cigarettes After Sex, Porches and Nilüfer Yanya soon followed.
Melding together their disparate influences in off-kilter pop and jazz gives their upcoming debut record the push-pull feeling of a group existing without any boundaries. Not fitting neatly into either the post-punk explosion, which defined their South London home a few years back, or the more recent emergence of a future-facing jazz underground, ALASKALASKA dodged the area’s typicalities. The lyrical potency of the former and the languid, freeform attitude of the latter can be felt across The Dots, but ALASKALASKA paint those influences in their own broad brushstrokes in the same way as Björk, Kate Bush, Arca or Fever Ray before them.
- 1. The Dots
- 2. Bees
- 3. Moon
- 4. Arrows
- 5. Tough Love
- 6. Sweat
- 7. Meateater
- 8. Monster
- 9. Happyface
- 10. Heaven
- 11. -/-
- 12. Skin
