Live remixes and long improv: what to expect from Jockstrap

Jockstrap, aka Guildhall School of Music students Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye, paint a vivid set of pictures in biggest cut to date “Hayley”. Frothy bossanova breezes across warped electro-psych and far-out pop distortions, with Ellery crooning lyrics centred around an imagined sequel to 2003 Louis Theroux doc Louis and The Brothel while 8-bit blips boing in the background - this isn’t any ordinary art school pop project. Jockstrap find inspirations in unlikely places, but don’t expect that stand in the way of them making utterly addictive sounds - the bewildering is made bewitching by this twosome, who seemingly leap gung-ho into every tangent they stumble across.

Get acquainted with "Hayley" below, and peruse the band's answers to our Q&A afterwards.

Could you introduce yourselves for us please?
We are Jockstrap (Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye). We are both 20 and in our third year of study and Guildhall School of Music.

What do you try to do with your music and how do you achieve this?
Georgia: I don’t think we try and ‘do’ anything. At first we were just making music for ourselves, because thats what we do, but of course we want people to like it and enjoy it. What we do do, is work really hard to create something special, tracks we are really really happy with. We put in a lot of time and consideration. We mull over things for weeks.
Taylor: Yeah, we have never have conversations about what we are trying to achieve and usually if one of us has a weird idea we’ll just try it out without too much discussion. I don’t think you can really ever know if you’ve ‘achieved’ something in music... so I don’t really see it as useful thing to start out with.

Can you tell us what musical and non-musical influences have shaped your sound?
Georgia: Musical influences for me include romantic and impressionistic classical composers (i.e. Ravel, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Borodin); songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Scott Walker... and all our musical friends we surround ourselves with. All our friends are writing great music - that influences us a lot. Non-musical influences are mainly poets (Plath, Rossetti and the art that surrounded her).
Taylor: Aesthetically we’re both influenced by just who we think are the best artists currently - Frank Ocean, Bon Iver, Kanye West, James Blake etc. etc. I think approach-wise I’m quite interested in John Cage’s era of music... Feldman etc. It’s probably the mix of those two things that lead to the stuff we make sounding a bit unusual sometimes.

What should people expect from your Five Day Forecast show?
They can expect a live show of electronic music with five musicians, long, improvised sections and live remixes of our own songs. It’s basically going to bang.

What are you working on now/next?
Georgia: We are working on remixes of our songs. And new material, obviously. Some exciting collaborations coming up too.
Taylor: Yep.

How is 2019 shaping up? What are you looking forward to this year?
Georgia: 2018 was banging. We wrote and released Love Is The Key To The City, we’ve taken our music to Paris and Iceland, we’ve sold out our headline show. I’m looking forward to festivals in Europe… collaborating with other musicians, playing new music in our live band.
Taylor: Got to write my dissertation, find a new flat, and rule the world baby.