Having already made a big impression with their first few releases achieving radio play across BBC Radio 6 Music, Radio X and BBC Introducing as well as appearances on BBC News, the indie outfit have built a growing hype around their infectious sound.
Returning with grittier guitar lines and swirling electronics over the grounding bass, ‘Pretty Words’ perfectly blends tight beats with indie driven rhythms, layered with 4AD style atmospherics. Topped with the emotive and strikingly heartfelt vocals, the honest voice of lead singer – Alice Edwards – completes the ethereal experience. Exploring obscure concepts with sound, ‘Pretty Words’ was written to express the sharp contrast between personal views centred in your own life and the constant struggles that often come with that, juxtaposing the redundancy such an alien concept has to something as huge as an ocean.
Indie Midlands: How would you describe The People Versus’ sound to new audiences?
The People Versus: Patroclus having a dark disco phase? We’re growing and changing all the time. Even over this year you may hear the sound change. We hope you come with.
Indie Midlands: How has your sound developed from when you started to now – how have you evolved?
The People Versus: Well, we started as an acoustic guitar, a cello and an accordion without a drummer. I like to think of that as our comfort zone, a none risky period before we set off to explore weird synthesisers and warbly guitar noise. I sometimes feel like our sound over the pandemic did the geeky kid showing up at prom and being inexplicably gorgeous american high school film trope.
Indie Midlands: Congratulations on the release of ‘Pretty Words’ : what was the highlight of producing this track?
The People Versus: A favourite memory of mine is our producers getting Alice to sing as angrily/loudly as she could to get that real gritty double tracked angry feel at the end of the chorus.
Indie Midlands: Were there any creative hurdles that you faced – if so how did you overcome them?
The People Versus: Upcycled sounds the producers involved very much pushed us out of our comfort zone even further on this one, the whole session was finely veiled organised chaos as we continuously sprung new logistical problems on them. Parts were re-written and re-arranged at will. It was a lot of fun but we learned some lessons for sure.
Indie Midlands: Where would be your dream location to play the track live?
The People Versus: My bucket list venues:
Brixton Academy + Red Rocks.
Interview with Jack Wilkinson – Guitar.
‘Pretty Words’ is released February 23rd.