On the Rise
Honeyglaze

Life is full of spectrums. Two opposing points sitting focused, gallant lighthouses while the space between them is filled with complex exploration - an unknown area where the loping tide brings those signposts pieces together.

Themselves, three cooly relaxed pieces making up a trifecta built out of vocalist and guitarist Anouska ‘Noush’ Sokolow’s wanting to “avoid the singer/songwriter kind of route.” Starting up the initial solo project under the same moniker - Honeyglaze - “Then I was asked to play a show. And I was like, I want to play with the band,” she laughs.

“I tried playing with a band because I only played like one show, as Honeyglaze anyway. And then I brought Tim and Yuri together in a beautiful fusion one week before our first gig. We had two practices. And then yeah, we just kept playing!”

The other two pieces of this trifecta, drummer Yuri Shibuichi and bassist Tim Curtis are equally representative of Honeyglaze’s smooth surface dichotomy. Shibuichi is the most forthcoming, while Curtis focuses, plotting his conversation. Sokolow retains a similar delicate pointedness.

Coming together for that first show as Honeyglaze - after seeing each other around in other bands - the mutual respect helped them go from assembled pieces to signing to London’s taste-making label Speedy Wunderground, ready for their debut self-titled debut album. “I see us as just progressing towards a slightly more ambitious attitude,” Curtis says. “But not in terms of like, success, but just in terms of expression; just in terms of trying to make music that we really think is good rather than going strictly with the flow. Just really wanting to have a really good live performance basically.”

As for Sokolow’s first foray into songwriting, it seemed to just be something she’s always done. “I don't remember when I first started doing it,” she says smiling while pondering. “I definitely remember learning Ultimate Guitar and you'd learn all the words in the course. Just I don't remember a specific time when I started doing it or what my inspirations were like when I was younger. To be honest, I don't know. Pretty just standard in the stuff when I was a kid and then just trying to replicate things I liked.

“And then when we started playing together, I guess I started writing more with the intention of like having a band I think maybe my songwriting became more simple,” Sokolow continues. "When I started writing for these guys I wanted to have more space to bring them in and let them do their thing. Before I'd write full demos with all the bass parts and stuff now I just write you know, I write like two guitar lines and the lyrics and kind of just go like, yeah, I've written this tiny bit if you want to do something with that.”

There’s a vulnerability to her lyrics. Offering everything up, the bands second single, “Creative Jealousy” is a bright explosion of “pure frustration. Like, it's kind of silly. It's just me being like, ah, I can't do anything, idiot.” She grins, “[It's] turning it into something productive. It's a huge catharsis when you shout that people, like, scream your feelings. As a group of people, that’s always a nice thing.”

This is where Honeyglaze are finding their following growing. The catharsis that comes from the gentle meanders, through to their crushing eruptions, allows anyone to enter that space to exorcise whatever’s going on.

“I generally don't dwell on lyrics for a long time actually. I kind of get them down and stick to them or like, I'll play a chord progression or they'll just happen,” she adds. “And I try not to rework them or they kind of rework themselves naturally when we jam them enough. When I listen to early recordings and the lyrics like I guess because I play them from memory it's just whatever feels most comfortable, will stay in probably. I generally write just like, from what's going on in my life. That's kind of what happens when I write.”

Honeyglaze are the kind of band that doesn’t pay any mind to following the hype train that’s started up; ignoring any personal push and pull of either being true to themselves or being cliches. “Honestly we come up quite straight edges sometimes. In the venue, just not drinking, sort of being really quiet,” Curtis chuckles.

The natural forces opposing those benchmarks also takes the form of shock value. Shibuichi explains “Personally, I feel like there isn't specifically an inspiration or an influence on how far [we go]. I feel like one thing's for sure for me, [and] it’s that I want people who see us to sort of maybe slightly be a bit surprised or shocked sometimes, or to go away from the show and feel a bit like, ‘wow, like that was a bit as amazing’. Like that was a bit surprising, I guess. Just it's really intense both ways, like just really loud and in your face, or being really, really intimate and pulling it in that direction. I think it's just the play of pulling all those together.”

“I think yeah, playing with the audience's emotions as much as with our own emotions because the more we put in like, the more the audience gets out of it as well. So it's interesting when we have a really intense show people come up to you afterwards. They're like, Oh my god, that was like, really sad...are you okay?” Sokolow laughs.

What Honeyglaze could sound like in a few years, who knows. They’re determined to continue finding how far they push either spectrums totem pole. But it’s all rooted in them just being that perfectly balanced trifecta.

“I think as musicians, we're all quite on the same page. It's like we want to make the best music we can.” She says, “We want to like what we're making, and we're always trying to experiment with it and push everything to the limit of being interesting. And I guess, thinking the same way in terms of really evolving like that. It shapes our music and a lot of what we do.”

“I mean, I feel like it’s simpler than that,” Shibuichi adds beaming. “I think it's just we really like playing music together. And then we feel good doing that, so that's why we do it. You know? It's not the simplest answer for that.”