One night time on Night time Tapes’ November 2024 US tour, the London trio paid a go to to the rooftop of the Los Angeles resort they have been staying in. They have been planning to document vocals for his or her debut album, ‘Portals // Polarities’, however the session didn’t go as easily as they’d have favored – a helicopter began circling above them, thrusting the introverted bedroom-pop band into the center of a police search. “We have been similar to, ‘Oh wow, that is what we imagined,’” recollects Iiris Vesik, who, together with bandmate Max Doohan, was experiencing LA for the primary time. “All the pieces was like a cityscape that regarded like a online game.”
That’s becoming for Night time Tapes. Since their debut single, 2019’s ‘Without end’, the band have launched a gradual string of EPs, gaining a cult following for his or her refined dream-pop engineered for midnight drives and wandering neon-lit streets. That’s right down to the band’s multi-faceted roles – on high of everybody co-writing the songs, Vesik is the first vocalist, serving to out on synths and flute. Doohan is the drummer, and he and Sam “Richie” Richards usually flit between bass, guitar and synths as properly. No marvel their sound is so various but nonetheless cohesive: they reel off Discuss Discuss, Jon Hopkins, Björk, Madonna and Flying Lotus as a few of their influences.
Whereas ‘Portals // Polarities’ continues their knack for gliding melodies and synths that virtually glow, it additionally pivots in the direction of journey hop, breakbeat and acid home – partly, because of Doohan’s newer curiosity in dance music. “As a result of we’re all the time attempting to react to one another, anyone would possibly convey one thing which is absolutely far outdoors that path,” Richards explains when NME meets the band in additional acquainted territory – dialling in from their south London house-share, not lengthy after wrapping up their Cowl photoshoot. “Then, we all the time attempt to perceive what makes it sound like Night time Tapes and catch it.”
However for a band whose work stays so intimate and spectral, ‘Portals // Polarities’ is “in all probability essentially the most extroverted work we’ve achieved”. “The start of Night time Tapes was extra introverted and slower, however our lives have been additionally slower,” Vesik admits. “All the pieces’s going so quick now. It’s like, whirr! It’s attention-grabbing to seize the snapshots.”
“We’re very feeling-based; we attempt to hold logic out of the equation” – Max Doohan
London appeared like an countless font of inspiration when Night time Tapes started. It was a change of tempo from the band’s backgrounds: Doohan and Richards hail from rural cities across the New Forest, whereas Vesik is from Tallinn, Estonia, and moved to London a decade in the past to pursue music. “I assume I used to be all the time fairly expressive – the standard!” she cackles, daring pink lipstick marks streaked throughout her cheeks from the photoshoot. “We’ve got a sure stereotype of Estonians,” she provides, referencing the nation’s aloof picture, “which I consider shouldn’t be true. We’ve got a really wealthy inside life – we’d not all the time share it…”
Doohan and Vesik met at college and began residing collectively, with Richards becoming a member of them later in 2016. Initially, all three pursued their very own musical initiatives, however quickly started jamming collectively at night time. Once they finally recorded their 2019 debut EP ‘Dream Without end In Superb Stereo’, they did so at hushed volumes, in order to not disturb their neighbours. “There’s a number of collective consciousness – there’s so many desires and ideas in London,” Doohan says. “It’s a really highly effective, buzzing power. It’s very inspiring due to that – when you can faucet into it and never go loopy…”
Since teaming up, Night time Tapes have entranced listeners with their tackle hypnagogic pop. On debut single ‘Without end’, easy lyrics make method for the right gauze of its shoegaze instrumental, whereas ‘Drifting’ earned them their greatest hit to this point in 2023 – a yr after they’d signed with Nettwerk Music Group. Their music is immersive however by no means self-indulgent, maybe owing to the band’s canny instincts. “We’re very feeling-based, we attempt to hold logic out of the equation,” Doohan explains. All three have had formal musical coaching, Richards provides; he’s a jazz guitarist, and although he’s fairly educated about chords, the group normally goals to hit a “ceiling of complexity” – proper earlier than the music will get scientific and unemotional.
Although it appeared Night time Tapes had initially come across a successful components to finesse their dream pop, their properly of inspiration started to dry up because the years glided by. Lots of the songs on ‘Portals // Polarities’ have been written years in the past, stretching again to the pandemic. Latest single ‘Pacifico’ hints at their need to flee stagnation, a reverie concerning the paradise of San José del Pacifico. The music is an entire fantasy: they’ve by no means visited the hillside Mexican city, though Vesik vows to go sooner or later.
As an alternative, ‘Pacifico’ recollects the band observing their shut good friend speaking about her personal journey to the city. “The way in which that she was so fired up when she was speaking about it – it gave the impression of heaven on earth,” Doohan swoons. “She had such a tremendous time, and we have been simply in London, getting on with songs,” Vesik provides.
On the time, the town that kickstarted the band now not held the power they required to complete their debut album, and looming deadlines meant it must be completed completely on the highway. Because it seems, that was precisely what they wanted. “While you’re in a single place doing all of your standard routes within the outdoors world, a number of the time you’re doing the standard routes in your inside world,” Vesik says. “That you must get away of it – awe and pleasure and nourishment [are] proper there so that you can entry.”
“Looking for reality and be within the reality, that’s freedom” – Iiris Vesik
Though Night time Tapes’ sound is mired in escapism and fantasy, there’s an unusually robust responsibility to reality on a number of ranges. Throughout the album, you’ll hear a mess of samples recorded throughout their excursions from November 2024 to January 2025. Most of their vocals have been recorded in situ straight into an iPhone, and the band would later craft songs round particular samples, exploring juxtaposing textures and soundscapes to construct their worlds.
‘Enter’, for example, evokes an eerie, surreal limbo, pairing a dampened digital drum equipment with strummed acoustic guitars recorded in an Estonian swamp. In the meantime, these LA helicopters flip ‘Depart It All Behind, Mike’ right into a dystopian high-stakes escapade, regardless of its dreamy ’80s instrumentals: “If the world is ending / Would you share with me our final strawberry?”
“You’ll be able to have a quite simple music, however when you put the sound of a cityscape excessive of it, it utterly recontextualises it,” Doohan explains. “You’ll be able to body the music in a different way relying on what sort of foley you utilize behind it.”
The band’s tour additionally coincided with some extra tumultuous occasions, ensuing within the extra pressing tone of the document. On the deceptively soothing ‘Swordsman’, Vesik guarantees that she’s “not duelling to harm you” and presents her opponent an ultimatum: “Might you select me over an concept?”
Simply days after they arrived within the US for his or her November tour, Trump was elected president as soon as once more – and after they returned for an additional run of dates in January, throughout which period in addition they completed mixing the album, they watched as he was inaugurated again into workplace. “Everybody was feeling this, however no one would speak about it,” Richards admits. “It was tacitly beneath the floor, however you’d stroll previous protests… I really feel prefer it acquired in [the music].”
The unrest struck a chord for the group, notably for Vesik, who was born weeks earlier than Estonia’s four-year Singing Revolution led to August 1991, marking the nation’s independence from the Soviet Union. “Coming from Estonia, the trauma that I see from my dad and mom and from the generations earlier than, I really feel like we’ve all the time talked concerning the inside life and learn how to stay a greater life inside your self,” she says. “I come from a line of hermits. The truth that I’m even in London, on stage and expressing myself – it’s fairly completely different from my household. There’s numerous battle traumas that individuals are nonetheless processing.”
“I like the concept music is all the time taking place, however you select to tune into it – and that’s only a type of listening to your self” – Max Doohan
She continues: “Via this album, I really feel like certainly one of my lyrical understandings was that really, there’s numerous drama that’s subtly nonetheless in some behavioural patterns and stuff like that. I’m very fortunate – I’m from a really pretty household, however when you’re at peace inside your self, it’s a lot simpler to speak with different individuals.”
It’s why reality in music is very very important for Night time Tapes. “I can’t actually sing something that doesn’t really feel true to me,” Vesik surmises, “as a result of looking for reality and be within the reality, that’s freedom. To be in any kind of lie is imprisonment that I wish to keep away from.”
However for honesty to emerge, one wants belief – and it’s the band’s shut friendship that’s preserved Night time Tapes’ trademark intimacy, even of their most extroverted work. They recall lastly visiting Mexico on tour, which blew away their expectations (“A little bit little bit of us continues to be there, to be trustworthy,” Doohan chuckles). Stealing away to the mountains of Tepotzlán and perching on a rooftop to document vocals, they bear in mind looking onto a valley, eagles flying overhead. Vesik says the sight introduced Doohan to tears whereas recording his bass tracks.
“While you’re continually travelling, these sacred moments that you’ve got with music are much more valuable and vital to search out,” Richards says. He describes music as a “protecting protect” that permits them “to flee someplace when nothing was taking place, to think about some place else, and after we’re away, to return to security”.
“I actually like the concept music is all the time taking place, however you select to tune into it,” Doohan provides. “And that’s only a type of listening to your self. It’s all the time attainable – you simply have to create space for it.”
Night time Tapes’ ‘Portals // Polarities’ is out on September 26 by way of Nettwerk Music Group.
Take heed to Night time Tapes’ unique playlist to accompany The Cowl under on Spotify or on Apple Music right here.
Phrases: Alex Rigotti
Images: Jamie Waters
Label: Nettwerk Music Group
