"It’s a song for when enough is enough, and you need to reclaim your own power." 

'Get A Grip' is the new single from cyberpunk duo, Feral Five. TheZineUK in depth interview.

This transcendental psyche-pop club opus, from Science Faction ring leaders, Feral Five, is an audible sky-scape. In a year of indoor dreaming and out of body dreaming, this band light up our collective virtual dance floor with 'Get A Grip'. I have “Bezzed” to this tune. It’s an instant ArtBeat classic - with the art coming from JAKe Detonator (Star Wars books, The Prodigy, The Mighty Boosh) whose reaction to the single nails it.

“Imagine something like Siouxsie and the Banshees cruising through holographic billboards in a Blade Runner spinner kitted out with a king size boombox and yer halfway there.”

If this article is an introduction to the band, then it’s also an investment in connecting to home grown innovators.

London/Kent science freaks, Kat Five and Drew Five , write and mix outer-space sounds at Feral HQ, also creating remixes for Newer Wave allies Deux Furieuses and Sisteray, along the way.

Feral Five songs have been played on Radio X, BBC Introducing, Independents and been featured in film. Their tune 'Kiss' with the poet Equinox was Gideon Coe's pick for BBC 6 Recommends Track of the Week. They have performed at Music Tech Fest with a 3D printer and even played up in the trees at a gothic graveyard for Danny Boyle’s Shuffle Festival. As you do(!)

Their music forensically examines the dark human side of tech, as well as love, lust and madness with authentic intelligence as their personal “AI”. The band have worked with 3D designer Francis Bitonti's sonified algorithms in a ground-breaking music and video collaboration 'Rule 9' - there’s so much more, including that they have graced Berlin’s iconic Funkhaus and supported Black Grape, Test Dept plus New York’s “feminist sound storm”, Miss Eaves.

Praised as "innovative electro-punk" by GigSlutz, Feral Five are one of the inspirations of TheZineUK tale. We watch them evolve organically: A force of Supernature to be reckoned with as musicians, activists and connectors.

We even caught them at the National Portrait Gallery once. A superb and surreal evening. Electronic legend Martyn Ware (Human League, Heaven 17) booked them to write new music and perform at his Picasso Portraits event, where they packed out the historic Road to Reform room with their fierce show. For TheZineUK, personally, also kicking off the Women's March which started gathering in that same Trafalgar Square after this event.

Their story is a series of MOMENTS. Even in a year like this.

One month before the end of Britain’s yellow brick road, we can face the future with some of the most amazing art ever conceived just when it can’t yet be performed publicly. Thank goodness for cyberspace, DIY, punk stage style, glamourtastic beats and tunes that mirror, but lift, the dystopian future now that we’re here.

Hooray for science.

Regular readers of TheZineUK may agree that the pink punk brick road to escapism has laid foundations over the last three years, especially, in our reporting. An interview with Feral Five has been a long time coming. Big thanks to them for this:

Six Of The Best, Feral Five, 4REAL, 3D, 2 Hearts Beat As 1:

As this era also has it’s good side, I started by asking what their own favourite moments were, of 2020:

Kat: “I went to a spectacular show just before lockdown - Kae Tempest, Kim Gordon, Jehnny Beth, Nadine Shah, and Anna Meredith playing BBC 6 Music Festival at the Roundhouse. So inspiring! Close runner up was the ace Unconvention in Manchester with Jump EU, where I got to see Saytr Play live. Then Bugeye invited me on to their ‘Rock, Pop, Rambles’ podcast - loved hanging out with them and talking about music and more. I’ve also really enjoyed creating 7” vinyl sets for Resistance Radio / Super Sevens online. Twitch partying!! Yay!”

Drew: “I spent a lot of time in my new studio, rewiring, rerouting and repatching everything. There’s a lot of vintage gear I’ve got and it was good to get everything up and running again. I had some really inspiring moments with family. Unbelievable as it may seem a lot of friendships were forged despite physical distances. I had a moment while everything was being rebuilt that I wandered out of the studio into the sunshine to see a seal swimming down river sans souci. I regained some perspective from a lot of little moments. It’s also been great being able to listen to new music by our friends. And me and Kat have been making more Feral Five noise.. I think Kat would agree that we’ve found new ways to be creative.”

Kat: “Yeah, for real. Talking of seals, I feel pretty kindred with Drew’s experiences, as I’ve been going open water swimming. You should see my wetsuit and neon orange hat!”

These are relateable happenings, sometimes it’s the little things. I wondered if these translated into any hopes or wishes for the near future…
Drew: “I’m really looking forward to playing live in a room with people, more people. That and travelling with our music to new places. I hope there’s some movement on more equitable streaming as many friends who are musicians, not just us, feel there needs to be a sea change. This is an area Kat is really active in.”

Kat: “I’m hoping the Build Back Better campaign will continue to grow and create new more positive structures for society, including for music. I also think co-ops really are the future, and the new Co-operatives UK CEO Rose Marley has some inspiring ideas. I’m part of Resonate Co-op which is an artist-run ethical music streaming platform with profit-sharing. I’d really like to see it grow bigger so it can provide a fairer streaming alternative to more people.”

Ha, I would love all of this, too. “Fairer” everything for the newer world, please. From Feral Fives’s hopes and wishes to their favourite sounds:

Drew: “‘Unfollow The Rules’ by Rufus Wainwright, the title track of his 2020 album; “but I’m no Hercules and this is Herculean” and yet he still smashes it.  ‘Pedestrian At Best’ by Courtney Barnett because pogo-ing to this keeps my mind, body and soul warm. ‘It’s Raining Today’, lyrics aside, Scott Walker is for when you need to cuddle up with your one and only under the knitted blanket granny made with a nice bottle of something. ‘I Put A Spell On You’ by Nina Simone because Nina puts a spell on just about everybody and always spoke truth to power. “

Kat: “Bugeye’s Ready Steady Bang album - partytastic even if it’s a bedroom disco

The Billy Nomates album - throw yourself round the room to these grooves with grrr

Prince Fatty’s version of Kraftwerk’s The Model, featuring Shniece McMenamin and Horseman - I love it so much I sang the lyrics in german over the dub for one of my vinyl DJ sets!

Water by Richard Norris feat. Bishi Bhattacharya, on his Elements album. Very elemental.”

Party at Feral HQ, it is, then!

As an audiovisual experience in themselves, what’s been a turn on in their eyes?

Kat: “The video of John Boyega’s powerful speech at the key Black Lives Matter protest in London is seared into my brain. I’ve loved Jelly J Artist and XLVII’s work - amazing positive street art from these female artists. I’ve also loved seeing guerilla art - poetry pasted up on walls in the street, and brightly-coloured knitted viruses hanging from trees in Hackney. Surprises are essential!”

Drew: “While I haven’t been able to get out to conventional art spaces and galleries, I’ve been lucky enough to see some really cool work in progress by up-and-coming visual artists that has been really inspiring. I’m also a fan of dance and was moved by Michael Fryer’s BLM dance protest and the work of ‘Dancers For Social Justice’. Recently I’ve been catching up with some online viewing and have been struck by Sonequa Martin-Green's amazing heartfelt performances in Star Trek: Discovery. There’s a moment where she stands on the bridge and gives the command: "black alert". The show is more about people and community than technology and that scene was a poignant moment reflecting our current collective realities and a creative call to arms that seemed to call out beyond the fourth wall.”

Aah, Feral Five, indeed an investment for the hearts that love arts. In a year when social media communication has been key, this crosses over, in a way to the question of campaigns and movements that have inspired them.

Kat: “Black Lives Matter. Vital on the ground campaigning, global action even from lockdown - where people shared links so you could donate direct to bail funds in the US. Also seeing new kinds of protesting, like the Chicago footwork dancers.”

Music Declares Emergency is brilliant, it’s bringing people in music together to declare a climate and ecological emergency and create a greener industry. Even Billie Eilish is wearing the t-shirt!

#SaveOurVenues by the Music Venue Trust. Crucial. Try the Fightback beer and help support!

2% Rising - the start of a movement. A group for female and non binary producers and engineers, founded by mastering ace Katie Tavini and artist/producer Rookes. They set it up this year and it’s quickly become an incredible and supportive community that has helped us all grow during this crazy time, and become a force to be reckoned with!

Drew: “As Kat says, BLM. It's way past time. Also The Campaign Against Living Miserably. A really important charity brought to our attention by Eddy Temple-Morris.”

These are all absolute game changers, some of them are (like Feral Five) intrinsically part of TheZineUK situationist documenting. So what of Kat and Drew’s own creations, lifts them?

Kat: “We’re lifted by our new track Get A Grip. It’s about saying enough is enough, and calling people to account. It was our first song created without us ever being in the same room, and that gave it a different kind of edge.”

Drew: I’m digging our new beats, new sounds, new melodies. 

Kat: My Switch EP for the Positive Songs Project - it’s still in progress, with some tunes already dropped on Bandcamp. It was a chance to experiment, write and produce music in different genres, and work out that positive doesn’t have to be kitsch. It’s been a lifeline! I’ve ended up creating more songs in 2020 than ever. 

Drew: I’ve been putting together a collection of music, starting off this Summer with ‘The Meeting Place’ EP featuring voices from the future and voices from the past, meeting in ‘the place where the trees stand in the water’. The track was inspired by my Canadian roots and uses field recordings I made in Toronto. Kat says I should sing more in FF so ‘The Meeting Place’ was a practice run for that.

Kat and Drew: “But the best as they say...”

Thank you so much, Feral Five!

'Get A Grip' is out now to download (Primitive Light Recordings) Written, performed and produced by Feral Five, and mastered by Katie Tavini.

Zeenagers additional: The Fertile Environment is a diverse and delighted arts tapestry of potential: It is testament to Feral Five's support of what's rising under radar that they are a golden thread in TheZineUK picture book diary: Music Tech Fest | with punk wordsmith and legend, Bruno Wizard | Kat Five, Jean Genie's Massive Hugs and Disco MarkY at TheZineUK East End Music Social | Live at CLIT ROCK | "Exquisitely fabulous": ArtBeatFest | Supporting Test Dept. at Amersham Arms | "beamed from heyday Factory Records, or another planet" | Bugeye, Scarlet, Feral Five supergroup at The Camden Mix-Up | Newer Wave congregation at TheZineUK fifth anniversary | Foxy! CroCroLand Festival | Deux Furieuses LP launch | January 2020 #FuturePicks TV pilot - TheZineUK stars are part of a huge but untold story. Feral Five are a gateway. Follow the science