At the tail end of last year Glasgow’s Humour put out their debut EP “Pure Misery”, a six-track fever dream that established the band as one of the most exciting new bands on the circuit, a record they called themselves “a montage of miserable things… a bit desperate and a bit grim, but also a bit ridiculous”.
Tipped in the NME100 at the start of the year and following a number of suitably packed shows at The Great Escape, they started the summer with “The Halfwit”, an anthemic, effervescent return that saw further press support internationally. After a self-recorded debut EP, it was their first single to be recorded in the studio with Idlewild guitarist and producer Rod Jones at his Post Electric Studios, and represented a notable expansion in sound for the five-piece. Today they follow it with a further sonic leap in the form of the propulsive live favourite “Wrangel”, played first by Emily Pilbeam on 6 Music, and a song mapping out a narrative set upon the isolated Wrangel Island.
Front man Andreas had the following to say about “Wrangel”:
“‘Wrangel’ is inspired by different stories of polar exploration. I was reading the biography of Captain Robert Scott who led an expedition of five men to be the first to reach the South Pole, all of whom died on the return journey in an unrelenting blizzard. The music had come together already, and the plodding, steady rhythm of the verses made me think of trudging through snow. I had recently watched an episode of Our Planet which showed footage of Wrangel Island in the arctic circle, an uninhabited place where polar bears are now arriving in their thousands to hunt because of the lack of sea ice. I thought that there could be something peaceful about being in a place like that, and wanted the character in the song to be imagining living his life out on Wrangel as he makes his way across the ice without much hope of survival.
An Indigenous Alaskan woman called Ada Blackjack actually did this after being sent to Wrangel as part of a doomed expedition of which she was the sole survivor, living alone on the island for nearly two years while teaching herself to hunt and to fend off the polar bears which she had a mortal fear of. A really incredible person. These stories of both survival and accepting fate at the end of the world were the inspiration for the song.”
Humour live together in Glasgow and formed across the 2021 lockdowns, writing and recording their material at home, with the music intended as a backdrop to Andreas’ lyrics. Sometimes they’re about letting people down, sometimes they’re about pets dying, sometimes they’re about trying to say something when you don’t have anything worth saying. They’re usually just trying to paint a picture, with Andreas drawing sketches to go along with each of their songs, including last year’s EP cover, and the artwork and visuals behind the lyric videos for previous singles.
They hope that each song looks the way that it sounds.
The band have announced a series of new live dates in support of the new single, followed by a string of shows in support of Do Nothing.
26/08 Connect Festival, Edinburgh, UK
17/09 Leffingeleuren Festibal, Leffinge, BE
18/09 Witloof, Brussels, BE
23/09 Floatalong Festival, Sheffield, UK
w/ Do Nothing:
24/09 Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, UK
25/09 King Tuts, Glasgow, UK
26/09 Cluny, Newcastle, UK
28/09 Brudenell, Leeds, UK
29/09 Gorilla, Manchester, UK
30/09 Rock City, Nottingham, UK
02/10 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, UK
04/10 Thekla, Bristol, UK
05/10 The Castle & Falcon, Birmingham, UK
06/10 Koko, London, UK
07/10 Patterns, Brighton, UK
13/10 Privatclub, Berlin, GE
14/10 Loppen, Copenhagen, DE
19/10 Point Ephemere, Paris, FR
20/10 Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing, FR
Humour are:
Ruairidh Smith – Drums
Lewis Doig – Bass
Ross Patrizio – Guitar
Jack Lyall – Guitar
Andreas Christodoulidis – Vocals