Tag: Isle of Man UK

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Penelope Isles Shares Shimmering “Thinking Seat”

Today, Isle-of-Man-born, Brighton-based JOVM mainstays Penelope Isles — siblings Jack and Lily Wolter — announced that they’ll be releasing their long-awaited and highly-anticipated third album, the aptly titled 3 on September 25, 2026 through Bella Union. Three years have passed since their last live show. Somewhere in between, life happened: Lily Wolters spent six months in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, stepping back from music for the first time years and spending the bulk of her time surfing. Jack Wolters hit the road as a guitarist in rising country star CMAT‘s touring band. And over the past year, Jack and Lily have released acclaimed solo album as Cuboza and My Precious Bunny respectively.

Written on a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal, 3‘s songs have sandy feet, beach hair and sunburn shoulders with shimmering hooks and aching harmonies. A year later, the band went to the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast to record the album live at Black Bay Studio.

Interestingly, 3 marks a couple of firsts for the JOVM mainstays: The album is the first as a true trio with their close friend Joe Taylor (drums) joining the band, and the first album that they’ve ever recorded live. Jack and Lily Wolter trade shimmering guitars and sunlit harmonies and aching falsetto ethereally floating above while Taylor’s drumming anchoring everything. While the album’s material is carefully constructed, the songs read a bit like the pages of someone’s diary ripped out and slipped under someone’s door while evoking a perfectly built sandcastle on summer vacation that’s flattened in an instant by a loved one’s passing cruelty.

Thematically, the album’s material sees the band still hopelessly obsessed with love, with heartbreak and what lingers afters, but the band carve out something entirely new: Sonically, the album is reportedly much like a shifting coastline of sound — hazy, luminous and always on the verge of collapse. Essentially, the album is the sound of the songwriting duo finding each other again. “Penny Isles is such a big part of our personalities,” Jack Wolters says. “So it was about time we got back to it.”

3‘s first single “Thinking Seat” is a sun-dappled tune that features Lily Wolter achingly tender delivery ethereally floating over shimmering, shoegazer-like textures and twinkling synths anchored by Taylor’s steady and propulsive time-keeping. Written upon reflection of the countless hours spent behind the wheel of the Wolter siblings splitter tour van, the song is s spiraling sequence of worry, heartache, planning, remembering, forgetting and then remembering again, desperately trying to hold it all together, trying to stay on track and on time, and trying to find a parking space large enough for the van. Sure, there’s a specificity that only tiring musicians and those who know touring musicians would know; but the song is rooted in a deeply universal uncertainty about your life, your place in it and what’s next that will be familiar to just about anyone.

The song features the lyric “U.G.A.K.I.,” an acronym for “You Guys Are Killing It,” a catchphrase that they coined and have used when touring felt especially difficult, dirty, absurd and flat out stupid, as a way of injecting humor and positivity in the constant uphill struggle of being a touring band in the contemporary music industry.

Directed and shot by the duo, the video pulls back the curtain for working bands, as it features the duo desperately trying to create a groundbreaking visual on a shoestring budget. While detailing the absurd difficulties of their lives as touring musicians, they do so with a sense of humor.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Penelope Isles Releases a Lysergic and Technicolor Visual for “Round”

Throughout the course of this year, I’ve written a bit about the rising  Brighton, UK-based indie rock quartet Penelope Isles. Led by its Devon, UK-born, Isle of Man-raised sibling songwriting duo Jack Wolter and Lilly Wolter, the band also features Jack Sowton and Becky Redford. Unsurprisingly, the band is centered by the bond between the Wolters, a band that was ironically strengthened when Jack, who’s six years older, moved out of the family home at 19 to study art.  “By the time I moved home, Lil was not so much of an annoying younger sister anymore and had grown up and started playing in bands and writing songs. We soon become very close. I had written some songs, so we started a band called Your Gold Teeth. We toured a bit and then Lily left for Brighton to study songwriting.”

While Lily Wolter studied in Brighton, she met Jack Sowton and Becky Redford, with whom she formed a band. As the story goes, when Lily Wolter returned home for the holidays, the idea of a forming a new band rapidly developed. Though Jack and Lily have long written separately, they chucked their disparate songs into a shared song pot, their new band was fueled by a passion for DIY alt rock/indie rock — and are influenced by the likes of Deerhunter, Pixies, Tame Impala, Radiohead and The Thrills among others.

So far, this year has been a big year for the Brighton-based act. They signed a record deal with Bella Union Records, who released their full-length debut Until the Tide Creeps In earlier this year. Thematically, the album is informed by the Wolters’ shared experience — in particular, leaving home to start your life and the various transitions you’ll experience in your life as you begin to experience adulthood. “We are six years apart, so we had a different experience of some of this, but we share a similar inspiration when writing writing music. Family, leaving home, disconnection and connection all ring bells!”

“Chlorine,” Until the Tide Creeps In’s Sleepy Sun-like album opener was centered around an arrangement that subtly bridges shimmering dream pop, shoegaze and fuzz pop — and while buoyant and seemingly ethereal, the song possessed a bracing quality, much like stepping into a cold shower. Interestingly, the song has an underlying emotional push and pull; the sort of complexity brought about by obligation and duty and the need to go out on your own. The album’s latest single is the woozy “Round,” a track that sonically seems to mesh 70s AM rock with shoegaze as the track is centered by a looping and shimmering guitar line and a soaring hook. And much like its predecessor, the new single will further establish the band’s bracingly wistful take on a familiar and beloved sound — all while evoking the ebb and flow of complicated and ambivalent emotions.

The recently released released video for “Round” is a lysergic and technicolor fever dream that features a person walking  and dancing around a very British-looking town in an inflatable, round suit in bright colors with floating images of the band performing the song in the background. “‘Round’ was the first song I wrote when I moved to Brighton a few years ago. I wrote it on a dan electro 12 string, which I had to sell to pay the rent,” the band’s Jack Wolters says in press notes. “We played the song constantly when we first started gigging and ended up leaving it out of the set for a while. We revisited it, as it felt weird to not include it on this record. We made the video in Brighton on one of the hottest days of the year. It consists of footage of Lily, dressed in a large round blow-up suit that pulsates with bright psychedelic colors and floating images of the band. We had a laugh making this one!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Penelope Isles Returns with a Woozy New Single

Earlier this week, I wrote about the up-and-coming Brighton, UK-based indie rock quartet Penelope Isles, and as you may recall, the act which is comprised of Devon, UK-born, Isle of Man-raised sibling songwriting duo Jack Wolter and Lily Wolter, along with Jack Sowton and Becky Redford is centered by the bond between Wolters, a bond that ironically was strengthened when Jack, who’s six years older moved out of the family home to study art when he was 19. “By the time I moved home, Lil was not so much of an annoying younger sister anymore and had grown up and started playing in bands and writing songs. We soon become very close. I had written some songs, so we started a band called Your Gold Teeth. We toured a bit and then Lily left for Brighton to study songwriting.”

While Lily Wolter studied in Brighton, she met Jack Sowton and Becky Redford, with whom she formed a band. As the story goes, when Lily Wolter returned home for the holidays, the idea of a forming a new band rapidly developed. Though Jack and Lily have long written separately, they chucked their disparate songs into a shared song pot, their new band was fueled by a passion for DIY alt rock/indie rock — and are influenced by the likes of Deerhunter, Pixies, Tame Impala, Radiohead and The Thrills among others.

The up-and-coming Brighton-based indie rock act recently signed to renowned indie label Bella Union Records, who will be releasing the British act’s full-length debut Until the Tide Creeps In. Slated for a July 12, 2019 release, Penelope Isles’ debut thematically is informed by the Wolters’ shared experience — in particular leaving home, moving away, dealing with the various transitions in life and growing up. “We are six years apart, so we had a different experience of some of this, but we share a similar inspiration when writing writing music. Family, leaving home, disconnection and connection all ring bells!”

“Chlorine,” Until the Tide Creeps In’s Sleepy Sun-like album opener was centered around an arrangement that subtly bridges shimmering dream pop, shoegaze and fuzz pop — and while buoyant and seemingly ethereal, the song possessed a bracing quality, much like stepping into a cold shower. Interestingly, the song has an underlying emotional push and pull; the sort of complexity brought about by obligation and duty and the need to go out on your own. The forthcoming album’s latest single is the woozy “Round,” a track that sonically seems to mesh 70s AM rock with shoegaze as the track is centered by a looping and shimmering guitar line and a soaring hook. And much like it’s predecessor, the new single will further establish the band’s bracingly wistful take on a familiar and beloved sound — all while evoking the ebb and flow of complicated and ambivalent emotions.