Porij today share new UK Garage inspired single “Unpredictable”, taken from their debut album Teething, set for release April 26 on Play It Again Sam Records (Nation Of Language, Editors and Lykke Li). The song was premiered last night as Clara Amfo’s Hottest Record on BBC Radio1. They head out to SXSW later this month, with a headline at Baby’s All Right, New York on March 11 before then going to L.A, to perform in-session with KCRW and at The Bardot, Los Angeles on March 19.
The 4-piece, who have carved a niche at the forefront of Queer-led dance-pop recorded the album with the legendary David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Young Fathers). With warm-up slots for Metronomy, Coldplay and Friendly Fires alongside their own crowd-igniting shows – Porij have been met with a landslide of attention at press and radio, lauded as “ones to watch” by tastemakers including The Guardian, NME and BBC 6 Music. The arrival of Teething invites you to take a leap beyond seeing dance music as a genre, built from this type of kick or that type of snare, and instead as its own dimension: a place you can escape to.
Porij are Egg (Scout Moore), Jacob Maguire, James Middleton and Nathan Carroll.
The roots of new single “Unpredictable”, lie with a poem Egg wrote about missing the simplicity of their early life but craving the complexity of the future which stretches out before them. It’s between those contradictions, the truths that co-exist rather than cancel each other out, that Porij have found a home.
Watch the video for “Unpredictable” HERE
Listen via all platforms HERE
On the new single, Porij say: “These lyrics came from a poem I wrote in November. It was fairly bleak, but in essence was all about missing the simplicity of my early life but craving the complexity of the life that could come. In that period of time everything felt quite up and down and I didn’t really know how I was going to feel from one day to the next.”
Speaking on the single’s gorgeous, hypnotic accompanying video, director Maxi McLachlan comments: “It’s weird to say my main point of reference was video game character building menus, but that’s where it started! The point was to try and create a video where Egg is constantly rotating but their clothes transform until it becomes so extreme that they warp into other band members. When we first discussed the video we knew we wanted it to reflect the chaotic but very carefully produced track. I wanted to create the feeling that Porij becomes so unpredictable that not even the machines can handle it and the whole thing shatters.”
Porij have endured the sharp pains of self-discovery. Every raw nerve, every bloody scrape and sprain, have been necessary for that unavoidable thing we must grit our teeth and bare: growing up. Vocalist and keyboardist Scout Moore (Egg), bassist James Middleton, guitarist Jacob Maguire and drummer Nathan Carroll are armed with hard-won experience, strengthened bonds and a renewed sense of passion. Their debut album Teething is both a coming-of-age story and a bottling of the particular magic that is unmistakably – and definitively – Porij.
Rather than floating just beyond our reach on a digital cloud, Porij are a real band anchored to tangible sound. Following their success over the last 3 years , the band had awoken an appetite for something we didn’t realise we were so hungry for: a collision of between the worlds of indie-rock and dance music, weaving together the organic with the electronic to create something at once tender and transcendent.
Teething proves that change can cut deep, but the propulsion to keep moving is what saves you.
U.S. Tour Dates
March 11 – Baby’s All Right, New York
March 12-16 – SXSW, Austin, TX
March 18 – The Echo, Los Angeles
March 19 – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco
March 21 – Madame Lou’s, Seattle
March 22-23 – Treefort Festival, Boise, ID
