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On Thursday (July 3), Sam Fender headlined the British Grand Prix opening concert at Silverstone. It was the first of four massive gigs at the iconic racing circuit over Grand Prix weekend, with RAYE, Fatboy Slim and Becky Hill headlining on subsequent nights. Also on the four-day bill? Pop alchemist JADE, R&B queen Mabel and a DJ set from Idris Elba.

With around 480,000 motorsport and music fans expected to attend the four-day event, there was a real festival vibe to opening night with loads of food trucks and thumping DJ sets between live performances. Some punters wore Newcastle United shirts as a nod to Fender’s beloved football club, while many more wore McLaren, Ferrari and Alpine baseball caps.

Fender’s hour-long headline set definitely got the crowd revved up, but here’s everything else that happened on a balmy summer night at Silverstone.

@silverstoneuk

Mega-incognito Sam Fender was on fire last night @Sam Fender #BritishGP #F1 #SamFender

♬ original sound – Silverstone

Taylor Swift got a couple of shout-outs

Before support act Blossoms came on at 8pm, the main stage welcomed two British F1 hotshots: McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ George Russell. The former revealed that he wouldn’t mind a role in a Marvel movie, while the latter confirmed something that fans will already know: he’s a card-carrying Swiftie. Norris told the crowd he sings along to Swift in the car, though on this occasion, he couldn’t be coaxed into giving an impromptu rendition of one of her hits. Maybe next time, Lando?

Norris, who’s currently second in the drivers’ world championship behind his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, also joked that he hoped loud cheers from British F1 fans might distract his rivals at the grand prix on Sunday. He’s very much in it to win it.

Blossoms delivered a storming support slot

The Stockport crew delivered a typically stylish set featuring cool retro visuals. Their stage design incorporated a neon sign spelling out ‘Nightclub’ – the title of a recent album track – and an old-school reel-to-reel cassette player. Highlights included crowd-pleasing renditions of fan favourites ‘Charlemagne’ and ‘There’s a Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls)’, plus newer tunes from last year’s chart-topping ‘Gary’ album. The wry, wiry ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ felt particularly atmospheric as the light was beginning to dim.

Frontman Tom Ogden also slipped in a location-appropriate motoring pun. “Come on, I know you’ve got a little more in the tank,” he told the crowd as he challenged them to cheer even louder for headliner Sam Fender. They didn’t need to be asked twice.

Sam Fender charmed Silverstone from the start

Having recently completed a UK stadium tour including three hometown shows at Newcastle’s St James’ Park, the 31-year-old really knows how to work a crowd. After his opening number, the sax-flecked stomper ‘Getting Started’, Fender said it was an “honour” to be performing at “such a prestigious racing circuit”. He also aligned himself with the many petrolheads in the crowd by saying: “You like cars – class. We like cars too.”

And though he quipped that he wouldn’t be walking down the main stage’s extended catwalk – because his guitar lead “won’t stretch that far” – he gave it a pretty good go later on.

@f1ems

Sam Fender speaking f1 fans language #f1 #silverstone #samfender

♬ original sound – Ems

He made the main stage feel impressively intimate

At this point, three chart-topping albums into his career, Fender has real range. He introduced the fast and furious ‘Howdon Aldi Death Queue’ as a “stupid punk song”, but tugged at the heartstrings a couple of songs later with ‘Crumbling Empire’. He described the latter as “a song about my hometown, this country and my family”, highlighting his flair for blending the deeply personal with universal sentiments.

No less affecting was ‘Spit Of You’, a song about his struggle to open up emotionally to his father. When he sang “I can talk to anyone, I can talk to anyone, I can’t talk to you”, thousands of fans roared along with him.

He bowed out with his biggest ever tunes

Like his hero Bruce Springsteen, Fender has a gift for writing stadium-slaying anthems that don’t skimp on heart and soul. He ended with two of his most galvanising: ‘Seventeen Going Under’, an unsentimental account of his teenage struggles, and ‘Hypersonic Missiles’, a song about holding onto love in an increasingly chaotic world. Both became mass singalongs.

He left the Silverstone crowd feeling seriously hyped up for the grand prix weekend – many were camping nearby so they could enjoy the full four-day programme of music and motorsport. If Glastonbury is looking for a home-grown headliner when it returns in 2027, Fender just powered his way into pole position.

The four-day British Grand Prix event highlights the crossover between live music, entertainment and F1. With viagogo now an official team partner of BWT Alpine F1 Team, fans can plan their own cultural and F1 crossovers this summer with tickets to all the major Grand Prix now available

The post Here’s what happened when Sam Fender headlined the British Grand Prix opening concert appeared first on NME.

When it first launched in 2010, multiplayer online game Final Fantasy 14 was a commercial and critical disaster. Riddled with bugs, impossible to navigate and missing a lot of key content, the series’ latest instalment, in which players try to save the world from an ancient evil, flopped hard. That is, until a totally rebuilt version hit shelves in 2013 and turned it into the most profitable FF game in history, with more than 30million active users as of January 2025 and five major expansions added in the years since.

• READ MORE: Now is the time to start playing ‘Final Fantasy 14’

Without a rigid set of quests to follow, players take on titan-sized bosses in mystical dungeons before returning to their adorable home-away-from-home to rearrange their furniture. What helps it all feel part of the same world is the brilliant music from Masayoshi Soken. The massive soundtrack features hectic, guitar-driven hype tracks, majestic bursts of orchestration and even the ability for players to make their own music via one of the 24 instruments that can be unlocked.

Speaking to NME, Soken describes his masterpiece as a “Final Fantasy theme park” with reworked music from classic entries in the series used throughout his score. “It’s important for me to remember the emotions I had when I first played those games. I want to take the inspiration I felt back then, and bring it into the now,” he says, hoping his music can inspire a new generation. ”My greatest hope is to see new media born out of the game.”

Soken also created the soundtrack to 2023’s single-player epic Final Fantasy 16 – and frequently performs at Distant Worlds, a Final Fantasy concert show that’s been touring since 2007. On top of that, he occasionally plays shows with The Primals, a band of game developers who give beloved Final Fantasy songs a metal-flavoured facelift. As Final Fantasy 14 enters its 16th year, Soken tells us why there’s still plenty for him to do in the land of Hydaelyn.

Soken’s inspiration comes from the unlikeliest of places

Even the most prolific of bands would struggle to keep up with Soken’s output over the past 15 years. What keeps him going? “It’s important to get daily stimulation,” he says. “It doesn’t need to be anything special either.” Yesterday, he drank some good sherry and a really nice Irish coffee. “I got a lot of inspiration from that.”

He also takes inspiration from his own listening habits, with his Final Fantasy soundtracks featuring everything from orchestral music to rock and pop. “Growing up, I always listened to classical music and as a student, it was a lot of rock. As I got older, I started listening to jazz and bossa nova”. Those broad listening habits (which he calls “Soken-style”) make it easy for him to tap into whichever direction the next expansion is heading.

He’s a rock and roll rebel at heart

Right now though, he’s listening to a lot of Rage Against The Machine, The Hives and Japanese metal band Suspended 4th. The same snarling energy can be heard in fan-favourite Final Fantasy tracks ‘Find The Flame’, ‘Shadowbringers’ and ‘Endwalker – Footfalls’. “I don’t know why Final Fantasy matches so well with that type of music but, to me, it felt like the game experience was asking for rock.”

There are plenty of classically trained musicians that work with Soken to create the music of Final Fantasy 14, but he’s not afraid of doing things away from plush recording studios either.  The sound of a pill rattling around an empty noodle tub has made it into the game’s score, and he once banged his wastepaper bin instead of using a proper drum. “I’m getting rid of all the rules,” Soken says of his approach.

Performing live is the perfect celebration of Final Fantasy 14’s huge community 

“I see music as a tool to give people a better gaming experience. It’s something that can be used to move a player’s heart,” Soken explains. Getting to leave the office and perform at events such as Distant Worlds keeps him energised and excited about his job. “I’m really able to see people’s reactions and what music does well in a particular moment.

“Final Fantasy 14 obviously has a lot of people coming together online but to have that community in the same room, united through music, is the best. It’s a reminder that we are all connected.”

“With a normal concert, everyone has a different experience of the same song but with a video game concert like Distant Worlds, everyone has had the exact same experience,” he continues. “It makes people incredibly empathetic towards each other. They know they’re all feeling the same emotion, and that’s a special space [to be in].”

He gets a similar thrill of connection when he performs with The Primals. “Normally the artist onstage is the protagonist but with those shows, the player’s game experiences are the protagonists. We’re just there to light a fire towards their memories.” The band has just announced their first tour in seven years – a whistle-stop run through Japan. Soken says he’d love to hit the road properly with The Primals and a European tour is top of his wishlist. As a full-time sound director for Final Fantasy, finding the time is tricky.

Soken is already working on his next project

Soken has been sharing photos of him at work in the studio on social media, with cryptic messages like “it’s finally coming to an end…” and “I started something” but he isn’t spoiling anything today. “I’m sorry, I really can’t say what I’m working on right now. I’m recording something though,” he confirms, adding that it “potentially” feels new. He’s just as tight-lipped when it comes to introducing new collaborators to the world of Final Fantasy 14. Pop-punk vocalist and unofficial queen of video game soundtracks Chrissy Costanza recorded ‘Give It All’ for Dawntrail’s end-game Arcadion raid last year, but Soken will only say there are “a lot of artists that I would love to bring in” when we ask who’s next. “I don’t want to create expectations.”

It makes sense to keep schtum, because Final Fantasy fans can be very precious about the music that weaves its way throughout the game. The various soundtracks have racked up millions of streams on Spotify and Distant Worlds has been touring for the past 18 years. “It’s proof that the game experience was strong and the music really moved them.”

Square Enix hasn’t announced what’s next for Final Fantasy 14 but last year, game director Naoki Yoshida said that he’s currently working on the story for the next three expansions after Dawntrail kickstarted a new era. “I just want to give people a higher level of game experience, so that’s where I’m putting all my efforts at the moment,” says Soken when asked about his plans for the future of Final Fantasy 14. “Everyone involved in making it is facing up to a challenge. I guess the only rule for us is to definitely challenge [expectations].”

The post How ‘Final Fantasy 14’ breaks all the rules of video game music appeared first on NME.

It’s Sunday night at Glastonbury 2025 and Kwengface is in his element. The Peckham rapper has joined dance duo Overmono for their West Holts headline set and an emphatic performance of the two acts’ collaboration with Joy Orbison, ‘Freedom 2’. Clutching the mic tight and crouching low as he bounds across the stage, he blurts the crowd-pleasing line “I love my freedom / But I’ll risk it any time I see them,” before demanding “energy!” from thousands of bouncing fans.

It’s an appearance that’s coloured with a confidence that suggests he’s got bags of recent experience performing live to the masses. The reality is that this is a triumphant return to the stage for a rapper who has spent the last two summers incarcerated instead of lighting up shows, missing out on some of the most pivotal years of his career and planned performances at Glastonbury, Wireless, and more.

Having risen to prominence with the Peckham drill crew Zone 2 in the late 2010s, Kwengface (aka Ninian Martin Agyemang Fosu) ultimately went solo in response to several members of his group going to prison. He dropped his debut mixtape ‘YPB: Tha Come Up’ in 2021 and followed it up with an impressive run of tapes, singles, and freestyles on platforms like Daily Duppy and Mad About Bars.

A memorable COLORS performance in March 2023 saw Kwengface reveal his true identity for the first time (previously, he’d worn a balaclava publicly), igniting a new era for the south London lyricist. But that momentum was halted soon after when the rapper was sentenced to a 25-month prison sentence for a conspiracy charge for which he accepted a plea deal. Fosu was released earlier this year after spending 21 months behind bars.

“Going to Glastonbury and being onstage was all I was dreaming about when I was inside,” he says, joining NME over a video call a few days before the show. “It upset me that I didn’t get to perform my headline show before I went in, but we’re here now and I’m buzzing. I’ve been practising playing live, doing rehearsals, and getting more comfortable. I wanna polish up on engaging with the crowd and things like that, but that comes with experience.”

The 27-year-old’s recent stint in prison marked a serious turning point in his life. After spending 100 days in solitary confinement, he began to think more deeply about the future. He absorbed new literature and music and reflected on his place in the world and interactions with others after becoming a father for the first time while in jail. Eventually, he channelled these thoughts in the recording studio at HMP Fosse Way. Those motivations helped lead to Kwengface’s most socially conscious and revealing new project to date, ‘Victim Of Circumstance’.

“When I was in the segregation unit inside, I said it to myself, ‘I’m just a victim of circumstance’, cause I was in there for something that I didn’t do. They said that I’d orchestrated it when that wasn’t the case. When you’re in there, all you can really do is think. And it’ll go either way for you: it will end up having a negative impact or a positive impact. For me, it had a positive impact.”

While inside, Kwengface started carving out a fresh path for the future, taking inspiration from the knowledge he picked up from Gucci Mane and 50 Cent’s autobiographies and Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. He recalls being galvanised by the stories of artists like Mane and others who “came out of prison and made something of themselves, and turned their talent into a business”. Since regaining his freedom, the focus has been on cleaning up his act and being a positive role model for his son, while also allowing himself room to get “a bit deeper” lyrically.

“I need to stay positive because I’m in a better situation than I thought I would be, and this isn’t gonna happen forever”

That work started behind bars, when he put together ‘Victim Of Circumstance’, enlisting producers like Trinz and strmz to help take his sound beyond the boundaries of classic UK drill. Together, they brought pumping, industrial dance-centric kicks and sub stabs to ‘V.O.C’, and nodded to south London road rap legends like Blade Brown and Giggs on tracks like ‘2 Summers’ and ‘Parallel Theory’. “What if Hollow never made ‘Walk in the Park’? / I’d say ‘fuck rap, I’m wrapping up dark’ / Made me wanna do music and perfect my craft,” he spits on the latter, reflecting on how Peckham legend Giggs inspired him to pick up the mic.

“Being in the studio in prison was kinda the same as being in the studio on the outside, which made me feel normal again,” he explains. “When I was in HMP Isis, which is a high-security prison for gang members under the age of 28, it was proper strict and I didn’t have freedom, but after I was moved to HMP Fosse Way [in Leicester], I was more free because it’s a more relaxed facility.”

On ‘Victim Of Circumstance’, he was keen to use his platform to give a voice to those who had a positive impact on his time inside. The only named feature on the project is Jungle (on ‘Monstrosity’), a fellow Peckham rapper who Kwengface describes as “one of the older lads we used to look up to” growing up in his corner of southeast London.

“Jungle was incarcerated for 30 years for a crime he didn’t commit,” he says. “He gave me some words of advice, he told me that I’ve gotta cherish my freedom and cherish what I have. I did a performance at HMP Fosse Way with PenGame, and he was onstage with me and said ‘This is probably the closest I’m gonna get to being onstage with someone doing a live performance’, so I feel like I gave him a good experience, and he taught me a lot about how to adapt in prison. We learned a lot from each other.”

‘Victim Of Circumstance’ is peppered with powerful reflections on Kwengface’s time in prison. With an honest, scathing voice, he ruminates on how moments of chance could’ve altered the course of his life on ‘Parallel Theory’ (“Weren’t raised how I was / Would I still be this weary?“) and dissects the infantilising nature of the UK carceral system on ‘2 Summers’, rapping: “I’m too old to have my iPhone and my TV taken“. He explores the strange contradictions of his life with humour and clarity, showing how musical success and incarceration collide in bars like, “See I went for a nicking / Governor said she a fan of the song with Chase & Status“.

The result is a more nuanced voice, firmly switched on to the inequities that plague modern British society. Since blowing up with Zone 2, Kwengface has been delivering cutting commentaries about the society he lives in, but ‘Victim Of Circumstance’ underlines how recent trials and tribulations have shifted his perception of that world. While things are changing, he’s still dealing with the repercussions of that time away, with his recently scheduled comeback show at the Lower Third blocked by probation officers, and a tag keeping him curfewed in the evenings until just a few weeks ago.

“It’s been frustrating, but I always tell myself that I came out much earlier than I was supposed to – it was meant to be October,” he says. “I need to stay positive because I’m in a better situation than I thought I would be, and this isn’t gonna happen forever. A lot of people don’t like change, but you’ve just gotta get on with it.”

Kwengface’s ‘Victim Of Circumstance’ is out now via Zoned Out Records

The post Kwengface is crafting a new lane outside the confines of UK drill appeared first on NME.

Few Netflix series have blown up in quite the way Wednesday did: the Addams Family reboot exec-produced by Tim Burton became the platform’s second most-viewed English-language series ever. Following a three-year wait since the creepy and kooky spin on the high-school mystery series debuted and turned Jenna Ortega into a household name, season two is almost here (naturally arriving in two parts, as is the case with the streamer’s most popular shows).

Isaac Ordonez – the 16-year-old actor who donned the striped shirts and knee-length shorts of Wednesday’s younger brother, Pugsley – returns for an expanded role in the second season, where this time he’s joining his sister at school, practising with his own expanding powers and generally being an outcast, even by Tim Burton standards.

NME met the latest Nevermore Academy alumnus to talk season two, massive guest stars, Star Wars stan-dom and more.

Hey Isaac! What can we expect from Pugsley in Wednesday season two?

Isaac Ordonez: “It was definitely a surprise to see how much more I was in it, like a big promotion. He’s got powers, he’s going to Nevermore, he makes a lot of friends and also [makes] connections with some not so good people. I will say that.”

Tim Burton has called Pugsley “an outcast among outcasts” this season. Is that a fair assessment?

“Very fair assessment. When he gets to Nevermore, he is quite lonely. He’s having a hard time making friends. I think even Tim… in a scene I did, he was like, ‘Oh, poor Pugsley,’ after we finished. ‘He reminds me of my younger self in school.’”

What can you say about the new cast this season, particularly Lady Gaga?

“I didn’t get to work with her, but she’s a great musical artist. They had her for such a brief time. I don’t even know what she did because I think I was just doing school on that day. They were being very secretive about what she was doing. It was very discreet in the script and then everyone was like [whispers], ‘Is Gaga on set? I heard Gaga was on set,’ and the assistant director was just like, “No… Well, maybe.”

Are there any other new characters you’re excited for people to see?

“When I mentioned I make friends with some of the wrong people, the main villain and I have a connection, I would say. Owen Painter is [the actor’s] name. I’m so excited for him. He worked hard on his character so I really hope things take off for him. He’s in a lot of prosthetics in the beginning of the season, so you guys won’t be able to see his face till towards the end. But, I hope things go great for him afterwards.”

The first season had a Harry Potter vibe – the magical school, the mythical characters, the mystery. Did you see those comparisons?

“Yeah, more so last season though, especially with the games they had: it reminded me of The Goblet Of Fire. And Harry Potter, after The Goblet Of Fire, it got quite dark.”

Could you see Wednesday being like Harry Potter, where we get a new story for these characters every year they return to school?

“Yeah, I think it is gonna be similar. We have our character trios, like Harry Potter has trios. There’s a new cast member around my age, her name’s Evie [Templeton]. We don’t have that many scenes together, she has way more with Wednesday. But, there is a little scene of Eugene [Moosa Mostafa] and her and me, and I hope that people see that and want more of it, so they make us a trio.”

Looking back, was there a particular movie that really got you excited about films and acting?

“I do think younger me really got into films when I saw Star Wars. I imagine it was Revenge Of The Sith, it might have been a different one. I know it was a prequel. That was like, ‘Woah!’ I had, like, five Star Wars birthdays.”

You’ve worked with a couple of Star Wars actors on Wednesday…

“Joonas [Suotamo, who plays Lurch in season two], he plays Chewbacca. And then Gwendoline Christie who plays Principal Weems [in season one], she’s Captain Phasma in the sequels. I forget sometimes, because you never see her face [as Phasma]… There are very [few] people I’d be starstruck around. Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor would probably be some of those people.”

You play electric guitar too…

“I always pick it up like twice, three times a week. I love rock, I love metal, so I hear those and I wanna play it. I’d say I’m decent, intermediate, probably. I’ve never been in a band. Right now it’s purely a hobby. But if I ever needed it for a film or a show of some sort I’d definitely go crazy on the guitar so I can nail it.”

What would your desert island album be?

“The first one that comes to mind is ‘Nevermind’, Nirvana, because every single song on that is good. ‘Ride The Lightning’ by Metallica, maybe. Maybe either Slipknot’s ‘Iowa’, their second album, or their very first. I don’t have a playlist for Pugsley but since he’s so chaotic, I think we could have similar tastes. He’d love the screaming.”

Do you listen to music in the make-up chair?

“My hair [stylist], her name was Sevlene [Roddy]. She was great, but she had a Nirvana shirt. I was like, ‘Oh, what’s your favourite song?’ She’s like, ‘I just like how it looks.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m getting you into Nirvana. We’re gonna finish this season and you’re gonna have a song that you like.’”

Have creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and executive producer-director Tim Burton mapped out the future of Wednesday?

“They haven’t told me, but I assume they’ve kind of got some things in the back of their heads lined up for certain characters, probably me included as well.”

‘Wednesday’ Season 2 Part 1 streams on Netflix from August 6. Part 2 streams from September 3

The post Isaac Ordonez on Pugsley’s “big promotion” for ‘Wednesday’ season two appeared first on NME.

Marcus Brown always thought of himself as the kind of artist who would only find fame after his time. Rather than arena tours or platinum records, he fantasises about “kids looking me up on whatever their version of YouTube is in 75 years, or crate digging and finding one of my records and thinking ‘this still works’”, as he tells NME from a catsitting gig in a sweltering New York – one of three cities, along with London and Baltimore, in which he lives a nomadic existence.

The 30-year-old musician’s easygoing charm and habit of sprawling conversational tangents belies a serious drive, “a supreme confidence in myself that I can do anything I set my mind to”, as he puts it. “I always knew that I had potential, I just thought I might be dead by the time it happened.”

Having never come close to troubling the mainstream after over a decade under different guises such as Riley On Fire and Mother Marcus, it’s understandable that when Brown assumed the moniker Nourished By Time in 2019, he thought that things would be no different. Working out of his parents’ basement, squeezing songwriting and recording between a host of day jobs, including teaching tennis, barbering and bagging online orders at Whole Foods, even his greatest ambitions for the project’s future were modest. “I thought, maybe I’ll be able to just go on a UK tour or something, and that would be a really big success,” he says. Those expectations were to be far, far outstripped.

In April 2023, with the release of Nourished By Time’s debut album, everything changed. ‘Erotic Probiotic 2’ was a multidimensional, supercharged swirl of bedroom synth-pop, R&B, lo-fi, freestyle, house, post-punk and soul. Beneath its psychedelic shimmer, Brown’s lyrics nimbly dissected the surreal and contradictory reality of persevering through late-stage capitalism. Within a few months, it was being lauded as one of the greatest releases of that year, and some were labelling Brown a generational talent. All that potential acclaim he’d hoped might be several decades in his future seemed to arrive almost overnight.

“I always knew that I had potential, I just thought I might be dead by the time it happened”

Even now, on the verge of that record’s follow-up, which will be released on UK indie label XL Recordings, Brown’s still getting to grips with just how quickly everything changed. “In a lot of ways, I think I still haven’t processed a lot of it,” he says.

For a while, the success of ‘Erotic Probiotic 2’ even shook that cast-iron sense of self-belief. “The fact I was able to do so much from it was really beautiful, but it also came with the fact that, for the first time ever, I felt that if I did anything wrong, it was all going to be over,” he reflects. “Every show had to be perfect. I was using every dime just to get the show and finding a place to sleep and eat. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself.”

Eventually, things settled. Lessons from the prestigious Berklee College of Music he attended a decade prior, where Brown “learned about certain aspects of the music industry, how manipulative it can be”, kicked in. He established a trustworthy team of musicians and management and started achieving modest financial stability. “I’m paying people for the first time, and seeing us as a team where everyone should be a reflection of each other and that one person can’t be too heavy. I’m having more fun now that I have less responsibility,” he says.

Perhaps that’s why his new album ‘The Passionate Ones’ feels both looser and more assured than its predecessor. The production is beefier and more commanding, but has lost none of its off-kilter charm. The grooves hit harder, the melodies worm their way deeper into the brain. Samples are used more broadly and manipulated more skillfully.

Opener ‘Automatic Love’ delivers a cascade of shimmering synthesisers that provides the rest of the record with an intense emotive charge. Lead single ‘Max Potential’ rides colossal waves of thickly distorted guitar until it reaches euphoria. The recent single ‘9 2 5’ is an irresistible left-field club banger. But it’s also a tribute to those in the grip of menial work who refuse to let their dreams of creative transcendence die – its protagonist a combination of Brown’s 22-year-old self scraping by in LA, and his bass player Carrington Edmonson, who moved from small-town Georgia to New York.

“I want to make it easier for other people who might be in the position I once was, but I’m not trying to be a pop star”

Lyrically, ‘The Passionate Ones’ centres on themes of “love, labour and existentialism, similar to my last couple of records but evolved because the quality of my labour has changed,” Brown says. It also hints at the destabilising effects of that transition from a juggler of retail jobs to working musician. “I talk about addiction a lot on this album,” he says. “I’m not comfortable talking about anything specific, but I have been dealing with my methods of coping during that period. Drinking a lot every day, smoking a lot of weed.

“When you’ve got four to five habits stacked on top of each other that you’ve dealt with your whole life, and now there’s a music career to maintain, it can get worse. I worry about how sustainable certain things are – I see me getting sober at some point for sure.” Brown seems largely at peace with his status now, laughing off the newfound pressure of writing with an expectant audience in mind. “I’m not focused too much on the reaction,” he says. “I only hope people like it because then we can continue growing, I can make the live show more interesting, have more money for my friends to come on tour with me, to have them be creative.”

Nevertheless, as a staunch anti-capitalist, Brown is also wary of conflict down the road. “Most of my beliefs are aligned with the basic Marxist truths that the workers should own the means of their production,” he says. He’s aware that as his increasing success draws him deeper into the capitalist machinations of the music industry, his commitment to those views means that “there will be a ceiling to what I’m doing”.

“I worry, especially the way I feel about streaming, the fact I don’t support the way artists are being paid out. But then I remedy it by thinking, ‘I can speak my mind, criticise who I want to criticise. The minute that would have to become sacrificed, then that’s my ceiling.’” He’s fine with the prospect, he says. “I want to get a house, maybe build a studio, use my platform to make it easier for other people who might be in the position I once was, but I’m not trying to be a pop star.”

That said, Brown is cautious of being too dogmatic when it comes to the songs themselves, where the existential horrors of modern life are expressed only through the way they ripple through the mundane everyday: “I’m not here to preach at anybody.” Simply writing a straightforward polemic about the atrocities of the Trump presidency would be pointless, he argues. “That’s what the news is doing. I like to think about things like how we got to Trump. I think it’s more interesting to find patterns, to use your imagination.”

On ‘The Passionate Ones’, this involves Brown dissecting belief systems and how people fill the void when they don’t have one. On ‘Cult Interlude’, a collection of snippets from news reports about how people can be preyed on and manipulated by false offers of community, reflects “just how fucking crazy everyone is right now, so passionate about people that do not care about them”.

Then again, as with everything in his work, it’s not to be taken entirely straightforwardly. “I was also winking at the fact that I have a bit of a cult following of passionate fans,” he laughs. “Kanye [West] used to have this thing he’d say at shows: ‘If you’re a fan of me, you’re a fan of yourself’. And I think it’s the same thing with Nourished By Time fans. They’re fans of life, fans of themselves, and fans of love.” They are the “passionate ones” of the album’s title.

It’s important, Brown says, to provide a counterweight to daily drudgery. Many of his songs are set in scenes of everyday banality, but it’s the way that even there, moments of transcendent beauty can still slip through the cracks. “I use love as a neutraliser, a balance for the other things I talk about, like working-class rights and oppression and racism,” Brown says, “because all of that other stuff is getting in the way of love. Our only real purpose as humans is to experience love. Everything else is just imaginary, something we created.”

Nourished By Time’s album ‘The Passionate Ones’ is out August 22 via XL Recordings.

Listen to Nourished By Time’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify or on Apple Music here.

Words: Patrick Clarke
Photography: Chris Buck
Label: XL Recordings

The post “Love, labour and existentialism”: Nourished By Time’s unexpected rise appeared first on NME.

In partnership with Open’er Festival

Words: Jordan Bassett and Kyann-Sian Williams

There’s nothing like a big rock show. We love a sweaty gig in a tiny venue just as much, but there’s something special those days that build towards the event, as you dig out your old band tee, text mates about your setlist dreams and prepare to get silly to your favourite tunes.

Day four at Poland’s Open’er Festival was all about that energy. This was thanks to Linkin Park’s headline set, the excitement for which was palpable hours before the band took to the main stage. Perhaps they weren’t not entirely responsible for the fact that the field felt busier than usual (the colossal line-up also featured world-beating rap, pop and art-rock), but the huge amount of LP T-shirts on display showed what a draw the Cali metal titans are.

It was fitting farewell, then, to a truly magnificent festival. Here’s how we said do widzenia to Open’er 2025… (JB)

Doechii turned the main stage into a swampy wonderland

From the moment she rose above the stage, standing on a mossy platform like a supernatural bayou deity, you knew you were stepping into Doechii’s world. The Tampa-born rapper turned Open’er into a lush, fog-drenched fantasy with tangled green foliage, misty visuals and her voice cracking like a whip through the humid night.

She honoured the golden age of hip-hop with reverence and a sly wink, paying homage to its fundamentals: DJing, raw rapping and fashion that flexes both power and play (oversized hat, corset, baggy pants). At one point, her DJ shouted, “We bringing real hip-hop shit to Poland tonight!” – a promise Doechii kept in full.

Her set played like a feverish, genre-warping mixtape. She flipped hip-hop classics such as Nas’ ‘Oochie Wally’ and ‘The World Is Yours’, incorporated the leaned-out drawl of Underground Kings, slipped into her viral Beyoncé cover (‘America Has a Problem’) and sampled ballroom house before she duck-walked and vogued down the runway to ‘Alter Ego’ – where she gleefully rapped JT’s verse and danced deep into the crowd.

@adrianblnc

Doechii pierwszy raz w Polsce @Doechii #doechii #doechiichalenge #doechiicrazy #doechiiwhatitis #poland #opener #openerfestival #dc #viral #dlaciebie #fyp #fyppp

♬ dźwięk oryginalny – Adrianblnc

She thrashed through a rock remix of ‘Anxiety’, guitars snarling as she sprinted the runway, spun and struck poses like a goddess possessed. Between tracks, she beamed and asked, “How you say, ‘Make some noise,’ in your language?” A fan called it back and she roared the words joyously – a small, electric exchange that turned the sea of strangers into her extended hype squad.

This was all about fearless freedom and total don’t-give-a-fuck self-expression. During ‘Persuasive’, she led us in a chorus of bad-bitch affirmations (“I’m that bitch, I’m serving face…”), then posed the million-dollar question: “How does it feel to be tha-that that that bitch?” By the end, we all knew exactly how it felt: unstoppable. (KSW)

Poland gave Linkin Park a warm welcome back

To a casual onlooker, Linkin Park might seem to be defined by their first album, 2000’s rock-rap classic ‘Hybrid Theory’. Yet when the Gdynia-Kosakowo Airfield filled with the band’s fans on Open’er’ final day, an overwhelming number of their T-shirts bore the words ‘Year Zero’, the name of LP’s divisive comeback album with new singer Emily Armstrong. Indeed, the festival’s merch shop was gridlocked for most of the day, with a queue snaking up and down the field. No prizes for guessing why. In their box-fresh shirts, fans seemed determined to show their support for the group’s new era.

Linkin Park haven’t performed in Poland since 2017, when they appeared at Kraków’s Impact Festival just over a month before original vocalist Chester Bennington’s tragic suicide at the age of 41. If certain corners of the internet have been less than convinced by Armstrong stepping into his shoes, punters at Open’er Festival were so enthusiastic that the atmosphere grew heady and intense. This was by far the biggest audience of the weekend, with the crowd stretching way back through the festival site and packed tight around both sides of the stage as digital clocks counted down to the band’s appearance.

When the group finally graced the stage, the audience’s roared response was ecstatic bordering on religious fervour. “The welcome back is very much appreciated,” vocalist and co-founding member Mike Shinoda said. “Put your hands up if this is your first time seeing Linkin Park live.” It seemed like every other pair of hands in the field reached out to the heavens, which explains why the new album’s lead single ‘The Emptiness Machine’ was as rapturously received as such classics as ‘One Step Closer’. As fans opened up a huge circle pit to the band’s brutal sonic assault, Armstrong purred approvingly: “I knew you had it in you, Poland…” (JB)

The best of the rest

After Doechii’s high-octane Polish debut, Camila Cabello offered a syrupy-sweet counterpoint. Surrounded by plush quilted blocks and draped in delicate white off-cut fabric, she looked like an angelic lullaby come to life while she danced her way through her discography – from her new hyperpop-inflected songs to her big, belting bangers. She even practiced her Polish, declaring her love with a gleaming smile: “Kocham cię!”

Between the pleasant pop of Cabello and Conan Gray and the post-punk of Molchat Doma and Wolf Alice stood Samara Cyn. Over at the Flow stage, she drew passersby in with her conscious, heartfelt hip-hop. Clearly inspired by the likes of Common, Mos Def and Erykah Badu, Samara exists in that radiant middle ground where neo-soul meets storytelling rap – every song a meditation, every bar purposeful. Even if the Polish crowd didn’t catch every word, they tuned into her energy, swaying gently to her mellow, soul-soaked tunes.

At the end of the night, the cultish rap disruptor JPEGMafia offered the perfect warm-up for anyone craving that unruly, rock-coded thrill before Linkin Park‘s headline set. Always sonically unpredictable, Peggy’s sound blurs the line between rap and rock: chaotic, skittish, ear-bleeding – but always magnetic. Casual fans headbanged and die-hards jumped nonstop, screaming every sample and glitchy drop back at him – unhinged devotion was in abundance for Peggy. (KSW)

Wolf Alice introduced Poland to their new era on the Tent Stage, as the London art-rockers performed in front of a ritzy stage design adorned with lights that looked like they’d been nicked from the set of The Last Showgirl. Singer Ellie Rowsell rocked the high notes on epic comeback track ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ as if determined to make those bulbs burst one by one, while hazy new song ‘The Sofa’, which includes a shout-out to north London ‘hood Seven Sisters, helped us settle into a final day winddown.

We’ll miss you, Open’er 2025. As Rowsell sang on the gorgeous ‘Delicious Things’: “The vibes are kinda strong here…” (JB)

The post Doechii and Linkin Park close Open’er Festival 2025 with chaos and catharsis appeared first on NME.

In partnership with Open’er Festival

Words: Jordan Bassett and Kyann-Sian Williams

Day three at a festival can be a tricky business. You’ve been sapped of the energy of the first couple of days, but the end isn’t quite in sight enough for you to dig deep and push through. The hangovers have piled up on one another, you haven’t slept and your tent is such chaos it looks like Cardiff city centre after an Oasis gig. All it takes is a wobbly line-up and things could go south very quickly indeed.

Luckily, Poland’s Open’er Festival has a few tricks up its sleeve on Friday (July 3). Little Simz spread love and joy and Muse rolled out riffs the size of the aircrafts that land on this airfield when it’s not full of superstars and music fans, before Justice razed the whole thing to the ground with their molten dance tunes. We go again tomorrow – but here’s what rocked our world on day three. (JB)

Little Simz shone bright

There’s something so pure about Little Simz. Even when her sound leans into dark, swelling industrial tones, her voice cuts through like a beam of untainted light. That clean-heartedness radiated on Open’er’s Friday.

She began her set in a cap, huge bomber jacket and blacked-out sunglasses, looking like a secret agent on a mission backed by her special ops: her bassist and keyboardist. She looked guarded, rapping ‘Thief’ and ‘Flood’ from her recent album ‘Lotus’ through gritted teeth, stomping and swinging across the stage as if to shake off the world’s heaviness.

But once she ditched her shades, her eyes burned with joy under the sunset – her warmth glowed in full force as she strolled down the ramp with an infectious smile and cheery “’Ellooooooo!” Her light is untameable.

@koncerty.i.festiwale

Znakomita Little Simz! Open’er Festival 2025! #LittleSimz #OpenerFestival #Opener #Festival #Festiwal #koncert #koncertywpolsce #live

♬ dźwięk oryginalny – Koncerty i Festiwale

The Polish are always appreciative, but no one seemed more grateful than Simz. Every time the audience clapped, she clasped her hands and bowed, thanking them again and again, pausing to feel the love vibrating throughout. Before ‘Free’, she had a tender moment, reminiscing on days she rapped for 10 people and now marvelled at the sea of fans before her. “Thank you so much. I don’t take any of this for granted,” she said, her London accent exposed.

While showing off her sonic range from jazzy funk to her new industrial-rock-meets-Nigerian-highlife sound, Simz’s set momentarily turned into a collective self-affirmation session during the heart-squeezingly tender ‘Only’. The Islington star guided the Gdynia crowd in a chant of “Only love in my heart” – a manifestation to clean the soul before the boogie that came swiftly after. She wanted us to “imagine” she was our friend from London, who was in Poland for one night, and show her our moves in some “sweaty, underground party”. Then she launched into the enthralling funk of ‘Mood Swings’ and ‘Fever’ from her 2024 ‘Drop 7’ EP. And the audience responded – bodies thrashed around, lost in her glow.

What could have been a pensive set became something healing and communal, like we had the chance to witness her bruised heart turn into a blooming lotus – and we all left freer and fuller for it. (KSW)

Muse brought planet-sized riffs and impressive levels of glam

Every rock star worth their salt needs an ego walk: that bit of the stage that comes out into the audience so they can swagger down, bust their moves and soak up the rapturous applause. Mere minutes into Muse’s main stage set, frontman Matt Bellamy was wheeling along said ego walk, headbanging to his own monsters of rock. You know you’ve got tunes to spare when you can dispatch the planet-sized ‘Hysteria’ just three songs in: the tension ratcheted up with that famous teasing intro, which then gave way to absolute carnage in the pit as Muse unleashed its jumbo-sized riff.

The massive crowd swelled around the viewing platform and sound system opposite the stage as Bellamy squalled out high-pitched notes on his guitar, which fans then sang back to him. It was a bit like Freddie Mercury’s famous call-and-response vocal at Live Aid, but with more devil horns. This was a classic rock show, but it was also – to namecheck the band’s 1990 album – pretty ‘Showbiz’, given Bellamy’s light-up bomber jacket and the glitzy lightboxes that flashed with various colours on stage. By the time multicoloured streamers burst from the stage and over the front rows, you half-expected Simon Cowell to come and give an appraisal.

Can you feel it in your bones? @opener_festival tonight.

circusxhead pic.twitter.com/nwjttszq00

— muse (@muse) July 4, 2025

Curiously, given the general State of Things and Muse’s obsession with dystopias and evil governments, the frontman made no grand political statements. There was, though, a video that filled with a John F. Kennedy Cold War speech, which was also broadcast over the speakers: “[The Soviet Union’s] preparations are concealed, not published; its mistakes are buried, not headlined; its dissenters are silenced, not praised.” With the people’s help, though, he continued, America could be “free and independent”. Recontextualised in a world riven with political upheaval and violence, perhaps that said it all.

The best of the rest

As Liam and Noel Gallagher took to the stage at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium for the long-awaited Oasis reunion, FKA Twigs and her troupe of uber-cool dancers put on a very different show on Open’er’s Tent Stage. Still, there’s more to link Liam, Noel and Twigs than you might imagine, as all three have received NME’s coveted Godlike Genius Award.

Last night, Twigs showed us how she earned the title. When she and her troupe pulled off immaculate dance moves atop an industrial-looking rig and wowed the huge audience with her unique blend of art-pop and R&B, there was only one word for it: Godlike.

Speaking of art-pop: New York chameleon St. Vincent appeared on the Tent Stage at 11.30pm, following Muse’s main stage set with competitive levels of riffage and theatrics. She pulled off her own killer dance moves, seeming to be blasted back and forth by the sheer volume of the music, as she treated Poland to tracks from 2024’s ‘All Born Screaming’ for the first time. Things even got a bit proggy when she closed with the title track, a multi-epic that encompasses lilting yacht rock, experimental electronica and something close to a Gregorian chant. You could well imagine Matt Bellamy backstage, taking notes. (JB)

Tucked under the Alter stage was a hyperpop fever dream led by the mastermind that is AG Cook. His glitchy, candy-coated synths and warped vocals had the crowd bouncing like they’d mainlined a bag of Skittles. At one point, it fully transformed into a Charli XCX singalong club, thanks to his absolutely brilliantly reimagined flips of their collabs including ‘Everything Is Romantic’ and ‘365’ – the crowd even screamed during the ‘Von Dutch’ bridge with religious fervour. Surrounded by strobing visuals and chaotic drops, AG felt more like a mad scientist than a DJ, turning the late-night tent into a sweaty, rainbow-hued wonderland.

Meanwhile, those disappointed by Trippie Redd’s last-minute cancellation were more than rewarded by local hero Otsochodzi. If you’re curious about the Polish rap scene, start here: he’s perfected a mix of frenetic, computerised melodies and razor-sharp lyrical precision. His modern trap features angsty, brooding synths, which grumble over throat-rupturing bass and invoke chaos galore. Even non-Polish speakers could surely catch onto the infectious flows and mind-melting hooks. Sometimes, a festival surprise ends up being one of the best sets of the day. (KSW)

The post Muse unleash monster riffs and the old razzle-dazzle at Open’er Festival 2025 appeared first on NME.

The first song I remember hearing

AC/DC – ‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)’

“I might be editing my childhood subconsciously but I remember hearing ‘For Those About To Rock’ by AC/DC on one of these slimline cassette recorders in Nicholaus’ [Arson, The Hives guitarist and Almqvist’s brother] room. I remember it feeling cool and dangerous, kind of like an action movie. If I’m not going by memory, it’s probably a Swedish children’s song called ‘Imse Vimse Spindel’ which is ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ but with Swedish lyrics.”

The first album I bought

Skid Row – ‘Skid Row’

“I went to the local record store with my own money and bought ‘Skid Row’ – and then whatever EMF record that ‘Unbelievable’ song is on [‘Schubert Dip’]. The store was in my local town, it was called Playman – maybe the English name was cool, but it makes no sense, right? The Skid Row record was the thing – there was tight leather pants and hair, which I thought looked cool. I think that record is still good, it still holds up.”

The first gig I went to

Kreator at Folkets Park, 1989

“I forced my dad to take me to see German thrash metal gods Kreator in my hometown with Swedish doom metal kings Candlemass supporting, who were my favourite band at the time. For some reason, at 11 years old, I was really into doom metal. I put on my coolest clothes and went. It was at Folkets Park, which is like a community centre that every Swedish town had. It was a social democratic thing, they built an entertainment centre in every city – a government entertainment centre. Very Eastern Bloc!”

What did your dad think of the show?

“I think he thought it was funny but it was pretty serious to me. As an adult, I think his impression of doom metal was very different. Who are these grown men stomping around in robes on stage like druids?”

The song that reminds me of home

Sator – ‘I Wanna Go Home’

“It’s kind of a power pop hit, but it was playing on a million road trip vacations when I was a kid. They’re from the same area of Sweden that we are, so I think that’s why. It was probably big in Germany and Sweden, but they never really broke the UK. It’s a really good song. But I also think songs about home always feel the same to everyone. The feeling of listening to ‘Georgia On My Mind’ – even though I’m not from Georgia, I get it.”

The song I wish I’d written

 Karen Dalton – ‘Reason To Believe’

“Sometimes, I think songs are overrated. In our genre, a good band with a shit song will usually win over a good song from a shit band. But a song where it doesn’t matter who performs it and I’ll still like it? Karen Dalton’s ‘Reason To Believe’. It’s a super sad love song. I feel like her music was discovered when we broke through as a band, and somebody told me about it.

“If I’m going with a song that I wish I’d written for The Hives, that’s way harder. Stooges songs make no sense without The Stooges. Rock ‘n’ roll [songwriting] is different, for me. Rolling Stones songs – they work for The Rolling Stones, but whenever somebody else plays them, they sound like shit to me!”

The song I can’t get out of my head

Gershon Kingsley – ‘Popcorn’

“There’s a couple – but the old synthesiser hit ‘Popcorn’, that’s constantly on repeat in my brain. I think, ironically, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue shows up once or twice a year. And then for some reason, ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin. It’s like a Pavlovian thing, when I go off stage, that shows up in my brain. The thing about songs that you can’t get out of your head, you don’t even really have to like them. It’s just catchiness, something neurotic… like playing a magic trick on your brain.”

The song I can no longer listen to

Radio pop

“Ninety per cent of all mainstream pop on the radio, the whole time I’ve been alive. I think that’s gonna have to be my answer. I don’t have a specific [song] – it’s all of it. I’ll just leave it at that.”

The song that makes me want to dance

 The Hives – ‘Try It Again’

“Anything by The Hives, played live. ‘Try It Again’ has got a pretty good groove. The problem is that I have to sing all the fucking time, so there’s very little room for dancing in Hives songs. I wish there were more instrumental bits where I could cut a rock. We’re gonna have to figure that out on the next album.”

The song that makes me want to cry

Gordon Lightfoot – ‘If You Could Read My Mind’

“Howlin’ Pelle don’t cry, obviously. I feel the same emotions, but I don’t cry. That Gordon Lightfoot song, it’s like how I was talking about songwriting before. It doesn’t matter who plays that song, it’s equally as good. It’s not tied to performance like rock music is. My favourite is the Johnny Cash version, or the original. Something about the chords, the melody and the lyrics working together. I think it’s a very well-written song.”

Have you ever cried to that song?

“Maybe if somebody pepper-sprayed me while I was listening to it.”

The song I do at karaoke

 The Champs – ‘Tequila’

“I do ‘Tequila’, where it’s just instrumental and goes ‘Tequila!’. That beats everybody’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. I think there’s the timeless comedy of just standing there, waiting for the ‘Tequila!’ to come. I hate tequila, but for the comedy, I would [take a shot]. It’s very Hives. Maybe that’s the song I wish I’d written!”

The song I want played at my funeral

Tom Waits – ‘Come On Up To The House’

“It seems very well suited for that. I think it might be about dying, some line about ‘does life seem nasty, brutish and short?’,  but I love that song. It’s beautiful and I think it would work at a funeral. Every Tom Waits song on ‘Mule Variations’ is good, and that’s probably my favourite. It has a really cool, massive drum sound, like, beyond Led Zeppelin. That’s what I first reacted to, but then I got really into the song – and that’s the album where I started loving Tom Waits, because before that, I guess I was too young. I listened to it on the CD Walkman in my bunk on the tour bus. It’s one of my favourite records.”

The Hives’ new album ‘The Hives Forever Forever The Hives’ is due out August 29 via PIAS

The post Soundtrack Of My Life: The Hives’ Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist appeared first on NME.

In partnership with Open’er Festival

Words: Jordan Bassett and Kyann-Sian Williams

As we’ve discussed this week, you never know quite what to expect at Open’er Festival, the four-day extravaganza in Gdynia, Poland, which this year sees epics sets from Muse, Linkin Park, Little Simz, Doechi and loads more. When you’re not enjoying one of the admirably odd attractions such as the Guess Jeans dance hall where you can have a boogie and watch a video of some trousers rolling around the washing machine, there’s plenty further down the line-up to make your eyes pop.

Take Dom Qultury, a smaller tent tucked away in the corner of this enormous airfield, which on Thursday (July 3) hosted the Gender Blender, a series of drag and cabaret acts that included a guy in a pink suit who did an extremely wholesome acrobatic striptease on a bistro table to Jason Mraz’s ‘If It Kills Me’. Here’s what else we saw on day two.

Nine Inch Nails upstaged the guy in the pink suit

Hard to believe, but somehow true. In what was admittedly a very different performance, Trent Reznor and his merry band of techno-punks took to the main stage at 10pm for a truly electrifying set. The band was packed tight together, hemmed in by rows of gigantic, white-hot lightbulbs at the front and sides of the stage; it was sort of like Kanye West’s 2015 performance at Glastonbury, but without a slightly awkward rap on top of a crane.

It was less divisive, too. The sound of that buzzing, grinding guitar seemed to jolt the huge audience, who bounced and jostled as one seething mass, only extracting themselves from one another to form a huge circle pit to the pulverising likes of ‘Copy Of A’. Punters spilled way back past the viewing platform towards the middle of the field, marking this as one of the most enthusiastically attended shows of the festival so far.

Reznor seemed to appreciate the explosive atmosphere at the Gdynia-Kosakowo Airfield. Clad in industrial-looking black jeans, boots and jacket, he swung on his mic stand as the pit scythed before him and threw his hands up like a preacher when the band pumped out the liquid funk of horndog anthem ‘Closer’. At one point, backed by the galloping beat of ‘God Break Down The Door’, he parped away on squalling sax. At another, before a cover of David Bowie’s stuttering ‘I’m Afraid Of Americans’, he intoned, “This is a song we got to work on with our hero,” adding that its sentiment “seems to get more true” with every day that passes.

The only crowd member who didn’t seem to be completely transported by the whole affair was one guy towards the left of the stage, who stood there calmly juggling balls while the carnage erupted around him. You see it all at Open’er. (JB)

Future helped Poland master the art of the mosh pit

The saying goes that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. So, having seen Future repeatedly at various festivals, you’re prepared to be underwhelmed: something about a trap pioneer – a musical needlemover, if you will – pacing the stage, performing half his lyrics like we’re in a karaoke bar, gets old. Plus, Future was nearly an hour late at Open’er and killed all anticipation – especially when every other set here has been so prompt. But, rocking his new bleach blond ‘fro and simple (yet probably expensive) tee and shorts, he swiftly apologised by being a chaos merchant, flipping the crowd’s disappointment into pure wildness with his classic trap war-cries.

The mosh pit is his kingdom – a sweaty, chaotic space where controlled chaos reigns suprem and only he knows how to command it. “Open it up!” quickly became one of Future’s go-to lines and with just these few words, the masses moved as crates were carved in the heart of the crowd, creating a sandy haze as powdery mud and sweat rose throughout the air amid the jumping. On a cold coastal night, you left the pit drenched – preferably in your own sweat, but maybe someone else’s too. “I knew Poland was gonna turn up with me tonight,” Future praised, dripping with raw reverence as though we’d be tired at one-something in the morning: we’ll rage at any time.

This Polish rap audience has truly embraced the art of moshing. Here, taking cues from rock’s originators, kids pushed open a huge circle and let it be: limbs swinging to the 808s, shadowboxing their inhibitions – but they also banished the mindless and robotic collisions of a normal rap mosh pit. You felt safe in arguably the most dangerous place in the crowd. With pyro flaring behind him, Future’s set didn’t just bring the heat – it was a visceral reminder of how a live rap show should feel: wild, unruly and utterly alive. (KSW)

The best of the rest

The crowd chanted, “Tyla, we wanna party!” – and party we did at the South African pop princess’ Polish debut. Bringing amapiano straight from Johannesburg to Gdynia, she owned the Open’er main stage with dancers in tow replicating the same moves that set dancefloors ablaze back home. Tyla slunk across the stage, swishing her hair and hips with effortless cool, before breaking into the Bacardi dance she made viral. She was clearly on a mission to provide energy under the Polish sun, and Tyla did just that.

It felt like the crowd was transported to 3025 during J Balvin’s set. Inflatable cars floated above the stage while supercomputer-like graphics scrawled across the screens behind him, the Colombian reggaeton legend rocking a pair of glasses only Marty McFly could also pull off. The otherworldly visuals perfectly matched the out-of-this-world energy pulsing through the crowd. Self-proclaimed salsa specialists swung their friends around, tangoing under the stars to the fiery Latin pop pouring out from the Tent stage. Though many didn’t speak Spanish, Balvin indicated “we’re all Latino” in spirit, uniting the masses while delivering his fiery rhythms that lit up the night. (KSW)

At 1am, as Future put on his grand, dramatic and at times somewhat gothic performance on the main stage, Caribou’s Dan Snaith padded onstage before a packed audience in the Alter tent, dressed down in a white t-shirt, cream trousers and a pair of blue socks. You felt like you were in the dance whizz’s living room as he and his four-piece band jammed through ‘Volume’, his louche, discofied take on electro pioneers M|A|R|R|S’ influential 1987 hit ‘Pump Up The Volume’. Ever-zen, Snaith didn’t even bat an eye when a drone sauntered through the air, whizzed around the stage and headed back into the audience. (JB)

The post Future and Nine Inch Nails bring pyro and circle pits to Open’er Festival 2025 appeared first on NME.

It’s Glastonbury eve and singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya is prepping for her biggest set yet down on Worthy Farm. She played the festival in 2019 and 2022, but for 2025 has graduated to the 30,000-capacity West Holts Stage alongside the likes of chart-bothering rapper Doechii. This, readers, is a major gig.

• READ MORE: Glastonbury Festival 2025 review: the most unforgettable moments from Worthy Farm
  

“We rehearsed yesterday specifically for the show and I know what I’m wearing now, so it’s kind of sorted,” she tells NME over Zoom, typically laidback about it. Fast-forward 48 hours and the west Londoner has blown away a field of punters with her grungey brand of melancholic indie-rock – and, thanks to a stylish black chiffon top and mirrored sunglasses, looked impossibly cool while doing so.

But we’re not surprised: Yanya has been sailing effortlessly through a succession of career highs for the past 12 months. In September, she dropped her critically acclaimed third album, ‘My Method Actor’, which was stuffed with carefully considered, introspective tunes that suddenly burst into life as headbanging guitar thrashers. Our favourite was lead single ‘Like I Say (I Runaway)’, and it rightfully featured on NME’s Best Songs Of 2024. After that, she went on an epic tour across Europe and North America.

On Wednesday (July 2), Yanya returned with a new EP of inward-looking gems, ‘Dancing Shoes’, that’ll also get your feet twitching on the dancefloor. Read on for an in-depth look at the new tracks, how ’90s legend David Gray provided inspiration for them and the exciting support gigs on the horizon.

Hey Nilüfer, you’ve come a long way since your lowkey set at NME’s VO5 Festival Showcase in 2017 – how have you found the journey?

Nilüfer Yanya: “It feels crazy that that was eight years ago because I still remember it really well! I was feeling pretty happy with the way things were going [at the time]. Most people don’t even get that far.”

How do you look back on those early gigs now?

“I think the songs were OK, but at the time I was like: ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written!’ I also thought performing was a weak spot for me… It felt like I had a long way to go but now I’m really proud of the live show, my band and how we’re able to replicate a bit more what happens on record.”

Your latest album, ‘My Method Actor’, felt like a watershed moment – and you’re following it up with a new EP within a year…

“It’s quite quick, isn’t it? I guess people’s attention spans are a bit shorter these days when it comes to the album cycle. You can put a lot of work into an album and then it can just disappear once it’s out.”

So these new songs are a continuation of ‘My Method Actor’?

“Yeah, there were maybe one or two that we were writing at the same time, but they just didn’t take off. They could have made it but, then, it just felt like we were failing those songs. So instead of wasting more time on them, it felt better to go with other ones.”

Why did you call the new EP ‘Dancing Shoes’? The songs are quite introspective…

“One of my favourite songs on the EP is called ‘Treason’ – and there’s a lyric on it about putting on your dancing shoes. I find that to be quite a strong image… Then there’s another side to it, which is more of a metaphor for life – when you’re dancing, you’re not doing other things, you’re fully in the moment.”

Are you a big dancer?

“That depends. If everyone’s dancing then yeah, but I’m probably not the first person on the floor. I don’t really enjoy drawing that much attention to myself.”

It’s a good job you’re not a performer then…

[Laughs] “I know! But that’s the thing, I don’t have to dance. I found this caveat – people can dance to my songs.”

On the EP’s first track, ‘Kneel’, who is doing the kneeling and who is being told to kneel?

“Hmm, it’s about committing yourself to something or somebody and feeling like you’re surrendering. I don’t know who’s leaving or not leaving in the song. It’s just the energy of the lyrics.”

The lyrics on ‘Cold Heart’ are about having lost something and in ‘Where To Look’ you’re searching for something again – is that how you feel as a songwriter?

“Yes, you’ve put it quite nicely – like you’re trying to grasp something and sometimes you get a glimpse of it and then it’s gone. I feel like that with the lyrics because you can get really excited by [one line] and then you might not be able to get there with the next line.”

Who were you influenced by on this record?

“‘Treason’ has this softer side to it and we referenced ‘Babylon’ by David Gray, from the ’90s. I love that song. And Wil [Archer, Yanya’s co-producer and frequent collaborator] kept referencing Madonna. I was also listening to a lot of Paul Spring. I love his guitar playing. He plays weird folk stuff and sings in Latin sometimes.”

You mention Wilma Archer, who produced the EP – what has he brought to your music?

“On these [recent] records, we’ve definitely been painting the picture together from the beginning. It’s very collaborative when it comes to writing. When I first started out trying to make music, everybody told me to work with this producer or that producer and they were all really good but sometimes I’d meet people and be like, ‘I don’t want to write a song with him. I don’t see how I fit in here…’ it’s taken a while for me to let those boundaries down and realise the best music is made through collaboration. And [working with Wilma] is my version of that.”

You just turned 30, which makes this EP the first release of your thirties…

“People always say that when you turn 30, you just don’t care as much. And I think that’s true, because I’m learning what to be precious over and what not to be so precious over [with my music]. There’s a lot of pressure put on your twenties to make or break it, but I think it’s actually the later years [that matter the most].”

You’re heading on tour with Alex G in the States this autumn – does that feel like a good match?

“I haven’t done the support tour in a long time, so I’m excited. It’s quite nice because you get to be the other band and they have to say hello to you. You don’t have to host and can take the back seat.”

And after that, you’re supporting Lorde on a winter tour…

“I’ve known her music for ages, so it’s crazy. When I left school at 18, I did this course. It wasn’t a degree, it was about artist development. And on one of the first days, one of our tutors showed us the video to Lorde’s new song. She was a new artist at the time, and the tutor was talking about how the branding and everything was all, like, 100 per cent – the song, the video, it’s all great… She’s been around for so long that I feel like she’s much older than me but she’s actually still only 28.”

Away from music, you co-founded Artists In Transit, which provides creative workshops for children of refugee backgrounds. At a time of such conflict around the world, does it feel more important to give back in that way?

“I think it’s always gonna be important to me… The thing that shocks me the most today is how [the government] are trying to [classify] Palestine Action as a terrorist group when they’re the complete opposite of terrorists. It makes me feel very scared to be living in a country that can make those kind of [decisions]… But, with Artists In Transit, it’s good to have something we can do that is a positive response as opposed to just feeling powerless.”

Nilüfer Yanya’s ‘Dancing Shoes’ EP is out now via Ninja Tune

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