Tommy Lefroy harness the power of syntax and synths on "Garden"

Few bands can lay claim to eloquently tackling the pathos of men through their poetry, whilst pulling inspiration from legions of literature and packaging it all under an alias inspired by Jane Austen's real-life inspiration for Mr Darcy - the original nineteenth century fuckboy, Thomas Langlois Lefroy. Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis, better known as Tommy Lefroy, have made it their artistic mission to subvert the canonical damsel in distress trope and recentre themselves as the heroines of the story. And they do so over an orchestra of hazy, sun-bleached acoustics.

Much like many classical texts from Chaucer to Shakespeare that herald the great outdoors as fertile and frivolous stages to forward action, whether hiding clandestine meetings in the dead of night or being a source of soft power for gossiping outside of the castle walls, Tommy Lefroy find solace in the "Garden" on their latest track. Taking aim at feeling suppressed at the hands of men, "Garden" ultimately sees the duo embrace their innate femininity and queerness to rebel against restrictive patriarchal views.

The track was “inspired by a series of misunderstandings with men in the room (and one ill-fated trip back to Brooklyn to ‘run into’ a long-lost ex)," the duo explains. "'Garden’ is about the frustration of feeling stuck in place, personified as 'the feminine urge to…'. The title is in reference to the mythos of female desire, and the irony in its biblical blame for the fall of man. We wrote this song about our own wanting, to reach goals and to feel unencumbered by limiting beliefs and circumstances”.

A lot to tackle in one 3 minute swoop and yet, with the track filled with fuzzy guitar-lines, grandiose basement drums, and a cinematic wide-frame scope, they manage it masterfully. Much helped by the fact Wynter and Tessa are multi-instrumentalists, producers, and songwriters in their own right (then doubling these powers by combining as a duo), the soundscapes they create are fully-formed concepts that are absolutely their art in every sense of the word.

With their genesis in the Covid pandemic three years ago, Tommy Lefroy went from a transatlantic Zoom project to supporting artists like Sigrid and Niall Horan across the world in realtime. Now boosted by their quickly built on stage experience, they explain how “we wrote the lyric “girls are at the gate, sir” [on ‘Garden’] for our fans, after being blown away by the power and energy we’ve seen them bring to shows and wanting them to feel empowered to get past whatever gates they may feel stuck at." As well as celebrating the community they have built in their music, they have also recently established their own book club, Some Vague Hope, which enables them to connect all the more intimately.

In melding syntax and synths Tommy Lefroy are truly an artistic project made for the queer kid who found comfort among the subtexts in their English Literature class; putting the poetic potential of popular music on the map.