Long Read // Izzy B. Phillips on surrealism, voyeurism and Black Honey’s new album ‘Soak’.
Izzy B. Phillips on surrealism, voyeurism and Black Honey’s new album ‘Soak’..
The lead-singer of the band gave us insight of what we can expect from Black Honey’s fourth record, Soak.
Formed in Brighton back in 2014, Black Honey released their debut EP in the same year, and in the years since, put out three albums.
They have always been a band that aren’t afraid to shy away from potentially sensitive topics, but the songs that feature on Soak take things to a new level for the quartet.
“I’ve been trying to dig in and find grey areas a bit more, and been reflecting on the work that I’ve made, and the worlds that I’ve built.” Izzy said. And this is something that is definitely apparent upon listening to the record, the songs create deep feelings of unease and leave you feeling unsettled, but also enlightened, and at times I felt comforted.
“I’m quite interested in the idea of woozy sensations, and the feeling of being conscious, and cerebral feelings of moving through life now, in terms of how surreal everything is.” She continued. Of course, throughout the album, there’s that trademark Black Honey sense of surrealism, I picked that up from the singles, especially Dead and Psycho, which are both excellent songs that examine the feelings that Izzy has discussed, but there’s also a sense of dread present, which is presumably in response to how crazy everything feels in the world at the moment.
“On all of our records, I’m playing a character, and exploring the role of being a woman, and recentering the woman, with a retro, nostalgic lens. But with where I’m going now, it’s referring back to those themes, and then evolving it. So, if life is a movie, then the plot’s fucked!” She exclaimed cheerfully. “It’s terrible writing, and it’s incredibly non-linear, this experience of being a human, it’s actually fucking deranged, and quite boring at times.” This is something that I find incredibly interesting and completely agree with. At the end of the day, it’s these mundane, absurd experiences that connect us all, and allow us to come together over music.
“But there’s also a pureness to finding magic in the romance of the M25.” She goes on. “Everything’s always about screens for me, and I’m obsessed with voyeurism. Like, I recently learned that more people click on Pornhub than Google.” There are a few seconds of silence as this sinks in for me. This is a fact that I find more depressing than shocking, and an indicator of where we’re at today. “Every presentation of a person’s self is just a façade.” Izzy delivers grimly, but somewhat passionately. “And I know that everyone’s complex, but we have these entire sides to people that we don’t even see or know.”
The themes of voyeurism are clear on the record, with the album cover paying homage to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, as do a few of their music videos. Another thing that makes Black Honey stand out is the fact that they’re such a visual band. Sometimes, I worry that the art of the music video may be slowly (or not even) dying, due to lack of funds, and people just not caring about them as much anymore, but Black Honey always deliver 110% when it comes to their videos. One thing I have in common with Izzy is that I’m also a film fan, and I adore all of their references and homages to some classic films.
“We’re not correcting anything about what we’re watching, either. We can’t look away.” Izzy says simply. “Whether that be Gaza, or war, or extreme things that we’re seeing. You can’t look at it, and you can’t not look at it. So, I wanted to use eyes as a bit of a metaphor for that.” She said.
When I asked her about the process of making it, she told me that by four albums in, she assumed she’d feel as if she knew what she was doing completely but tells me that’s not the case. “It’s rare to get to four albums, so you try and find other people to speak to that have also done four albums, and understand what it’s like, and what it’s like to be a woman making music.” She assures me that she has a great group of friends to call upon, though.
There’s a song on the album called Carroll Avenue, and as soon as I heard it, I knew it would be one of my favourites from the record. When I tell Izzy this, she gasps and smiles and tells me that it’s her favourite too. “Carroll Avenue was a road that I was living on in LA. It’s full of Victorian, creepy houses, proper Tim Burton. It’s where the Charmed house is, and where they filmed part of the Thriller music video. There were also coyotes running up and down the street. It was a surreal experience, and the perfect lens to examine the consumerism culture we’ve created.” The song really has a magical, mysterious, and deeply unsettling vibe to it, and you can completely picture everything Izzy is singing about. Definitely a career-best for the band, in my opinion.
As a full body of work, this record is certainly the band’s most cohesive work, which is something we talk about too. It’s incredibly impressive to be able to create such a range of songs in terms of production, where nothing feels repetitive or dull, yet managing to make it all sound exciting and fresh.
Another one of my favourite tracks is a song called Vampire In The Kitchen, which is a slightly tongue-in-cheek, fun, yet also touching song. I almost don’t want to give too much away, but there is an incredible guitar solo that seriously takes you by surprise, and I loved it. Listening to it felt like being hit with a colossal wave of emotions. “We wrote the song as a ballad, and the next day my producer added the solo, and I hated it, initially. Then we sat with it for about six months, and it became my favourite part of the whole album.” Izzy said enthusiastically.
There’s also a song called Medication, the final one on the album, that I wanted to ask her about, because it’s one that really resonated with me, tonally and musically. It’s certainly one of the best closing tracks I’ve heard all year; it gives you a sense of finality, and also a fresh start almost. It also has ethereal qualities, and makes you feel like you’re entering another dimension. “You know the explosion of glitter that Perfume Genius does? I wanted to reference that.” She tells me. “I’m so pleased that it’s landing.” She says, when I tell her what the song meant to me. “I know that the people on this planet that are managing mental illness will relate to that track.” She finishes.
Feature by Lucy Skeet
