If you launched an Isle of Wight festival strictly for homegrown bands – and surely someone will do it soon – Plastic Mermaids are ready for the headline slot. This creative collective don’t just produce their own music, artwork, videos and colourful shows – artist/designer Jamie Richards has also invented an effects pedal used by Bon Iver, Warpaint, Hot Chip, Bicep and many more, and they’re apparently planning a pigeon-operated synthesiser.
There are five main Mermaids, writing playfully ambitious songs that wander from bouncy pop and orchestral psych to indie folk and electro. But there’s an open door to their home studio, bringing string-playing60-somethings or mates with brass to deepen and enrich their ludic sound. The island’s odd demographics (“Most people leave between 18 and 30,” says Jamie’s brother, singer Douglas) necessitate more cross-generational collaboration than you get elsewhere. Over the years, the band’s members have played with local pals Lauran Hibberd, Coach Party, Champs and Wet Leg, alongside day jobs such as making ornaments and directing fashion shoots.
The brilliance that Plastic Mermaids shone on early songs such as Yoyo – a stunning meditation on Doug and Jamie’s dying mum – lights up excellent new album It’s Not Comfortable to Grow. Obsessively dissecting a doomed relationship, haunted by betrayal, trapped in overthinking, it’s a collection that gathers intensity until it collapses, exhausted, into Elastic Time’s epic swoon. “I only made this band to impress you,” Douglas sang on 2019’s 10,000 Violins Playing Inside an Otherwise Empty Head. Job done.
It’s Not Comfortable to Grow is out now on Sunday Best. Plastic Mermaids tour from 2 to 15 November
