The sweltering heat of high British summer time just notched up a degree or three. Stepping down into the fetid underworlds of glorious feedback and wretched noise, enter paper hats, the latest spawn of that much fabled creative power-bank the Brixton Windmill.
And debut single ‘D’Artagnan’ – named after Dumas’ Musketeer (because why not, I guess?) feels like the kind of all-or-nothing, cards-on-the-table statement that maybe all debut singles should aspire to. A cerebrum-collapsing post-hardcore waltz of zinging riffs, muddy spoken word, tantalising post-rock breakdowns and all-out, ‘get fucked’ abrasions, the world might end tomorrow but at least paper hats could say they gave it all.
Fitting alongside howling Crewe-based racket-mongers UNIVERSITY, it’s hard not to recall here too the furious dramas of early black midi too, in the tight tempestuous vibe-switches and acute sense of theatre, where you can’t help but pin your whole future on whatever the song might take you next
Photo by Richard Mukuze
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