It was late-2009, early 2010 when I fell in love. A spiral of bewildering Tumblr blogs, brimming with collages and post-political meanderings led to a sparsely recorded primal scream of a pop song, set to monochrome war footage and a zeppelin disaster, Heavy Pop was more than just another internet-born über-hyped piece of throwaway music, it was a call to arms – a reminder that music mattered in the digital age, a throwback to bands with posturing passed Converse collaborations. Concrete Gold was Tom Waits butchering a perverted priest to the sound of haunting church organs, achingly beautiful. So beautiful. Alongside these emotive pieces of music, the four wiry young kids were playing a cat and mouse game with both the media and major labels – performances at their manager’s Manchester coffeeshop An Outlet were gaining notoriety, but they were reluctant to play ‘the game’. I first saw WU LYF in the flesh at Salford’s Islington Mill later in 2010, a scruffy quartet whose gushing, shambolic clatterings were held together by effortless songwriting and pure pop brilliance that they were seemingly trying hard to bury under Ellery Roberts’ cough-medicine-addicted growl, post-rock noise masked surf guitar, dischord and drummer Joe Manning’s haywire rhythms.
I said it, said it to anyone who listened: this was a group that could change everything. The power to move and mobilise action, a collective force that made me feel like a teenager again. A self-published 12″ single, complete with WU LYF scarf to militantly cover your face with (and bring along to shows for free entrance) was released. Your purchase came with ‘lifetime membership to the Lucifer Youth Foundation’. I wrote about them on this site, in its infancy, and found myself removed from their mailing list, missing out on a secret gig in a church. Coincidence? Probably, but I wanted it to be more. A subsequent mailing rambled something about a distaste for websites that promoted the next coolest thing (that’s us). Were the spiky little bastards really out to get me, or had their music moved me to question myself and my worth – they were tearing pop music a new arsehole, taking stance alongside revolutionary imagery and post-art, stoking the fire to alight enthusiasm in an apathetic generation. And I was writing about fucking chairs.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I went to see them over the next year or so, perhaps I’m showing my age, but I felt I watched them grow. Dirt changed things, “no matter what they say, dollar is not your friend” – it was riot music for the disaffected, the antithesis of the futile Mumford and Cunts whitewash that contemporary music was being subjected to. Their self-released debut, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, is near perfect. With most people aspring to make music for bankers to listen to on their iPods, WU LYF were making music to take to the frontline – militant Occupy movement imagery accompanied their music, their young fans were sold. The apathetic, bred on a diet of straight-to-Tesco sub-music, had a voice. Following one particular gig, the engaged-audience (those at the front, getting trodden on, not the head-nodding chair-warmers in the upstairs bar) burst out onto the street, kids literally ran over the rooftops of parked cars. This is not normal behaviour for the alternative kids of today, I grinned from ear to ear. Here was a band making music that truly moves. A band that reminded us that music is art.
What next? Interviews. The awkward little blighters even spoke to the NME, although a particularly uncomfortable ‘chat’ with Huw Stephens on Radio One reassured us that all was not safe. I saw them tear apart Shepherds Bush Empire in November 2011, I think I even saw Ellery smile. America’s counterculture took to the four Manc lads who had tirelessly toured the world without a record deal. They played Coachella, appeared on David Letterman (not without incident)… their star looked set to rise and rise.
November 2012, I bump into frontman Ellery Roberts at Manchester’s Warehouse Project. I’m a little (a lot) worse for wear, and I blather plenty of rubbish about how great he is (a man a decade my junior). Two weeks later, the young Mancunian tells his bandmates – and the world – via YouTube, that he’s done. Accompanied by a new song, T R I U M P H (which is brilliant by the way), Roberts’ wrote “WU LYF is dead to me. The sincerity of “Go tell fire” was lost in the bull shit of maintaining face in the world we live. Clap your hands chimp everybody’s watching.” Of course it was accompanied by plenty of the self-important messiah complex strangeness with which his ramblings had become famous for; “another distraction from the world we live. I and I struggle for a based positivity; Get free or die trying; J C Hung him self up for the easy way out. so Broken Mama Cita be kind to me.” Was my declaration of love the straw that broke the camel’s back?
Bassist Tom McClung has kept himself busy under the umbrella of his Francis Lung moniker. Playing countless shows around the rainy city, McClung’s Brooklyn Girls is a one-man act of rare beauty – whilst from the same camp, the two remaining LYF members, Evans Kati and Joe Manning, have joined the Lung to form Los Porcos, whose blissful melodies are the stuff drunken summer days are all about. But great music is just that, great music. WU LYF were no more, and once again, the indie kids were growing moustaches and dancing ironically to vintage Top 40 in bars that sell £15 cocktails. The uprising was on hold.
But that was days ago. That was before KEROU’S LAMENT had been unleashed. Before Ellery James Roberts had shown his hand. A new Tumblr tells us Roberts is in Amsterdam, via Southern Spain and his parents’ attic; seemingly soon on his way to Vietnam to complete his personal call to arms. The revolutionary imagery is back, the contrary manifesto to purge the world of commercialised culture, the vitriolic promotion of anti-art, the spiky, unapproachable awkwardness. It’s time to question my worth once again. A well-read, intelligent, provocative little shit determined to set fire to your beliefs and half-truths.
Its video is powerful stuff, but it’s the music that packs the real killer blow; KEROU’S LAMENT is five minutes or so of classic WU LYF intensity. The keyboard riff sets the tone, the gruff voice is back, but with depth, so much more depth; around two minutes in, Roberts turns Springsteen, this is The Boss’ protest songs for the disaffected generation. “I’m so alive I can barely feel” he wails, recalling Go Tell Fire’s most emotional moments, before the track builds into a classic WU LYF crescendo… “to the powers of old, to the powers that be, you have fucked up this world, but you won’t fuck with me” Roberts repeats. The fists are pumping, the kids are calling, the uprising is off hold. Music feels important again.
What next? Well that’s anyone’s guess. Roberts is back talking about separatist movements, and abandoning “adulterated notions of desire, the self.” He responds to a question regarding a solo EP/album as “circa 2017” and claims touring isn’t for him. Frustrating, troublesome, unreasonable, the Lucifer Youth Foundation is back, but don’t hold your breath. Roberts is playing by his rules once again.
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