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Oct 21, 2021 By Dom Gourlay Photography by Chris Trevena

Cornish trio Mildred Maude release their second album Sleepover tomorrow (Friday 22nd October). The band’s first release for esteemed London-based independent label Sonic Cathedral, Sleepover bares all the hallmarks of the band’s intense yet thrillingly danceable live shows across its four pieces (“Trevena”, “Chemo Brain”, “Elliott’s Floor”, “Glen Plays Moses”). Drawing comparisons with artists ranging from Can and Neu! to Mogwai, Stereolab and Slowdive, Mildred Maude have concocted a rich melting pot of sonic bliss that should ensure the band reel in the end of year plaudits come December.

Formed after bass player Lee Wade was booed offstage at a John Peel Day event and named after drummer Louie Newlands’ grandmother Josephine Mildred Maude Gulliver. The trio - Wade, Newlands and guitarist Matt Ashdown - actually came to the attention of Sonic Cathedral back in 2019 after label boss Nathaniel Cramp described them as the most exciting band he’d seen in a very long time. However, with the Covid-19 pandemic putting everything on hold, it’s taken a further two years for Mildred Maude’s collaboration with the label to come to fruition.

Talking about the album, guitarist Ashdown says: ““It’s always our approach to offset noise with beauty. When I was at art college I read Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, and I always seem to think back to that balance of Dionysian and Apollonian elements when we make music. Maybe for this album the balance swings towards beauty because we had a little more time to be still, and moments of chaotic ecstasy kind of just naturally unravelled with the dynamics of bass and drums.”

Released on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital platforms tomorrow via Sonic Cathedral, Sleepover delivers those lofty claims on every level.

Meanwhile, to coincide with the album’s release, Mildred Maude are putting out a brand new video today (Thursday 21st October) for “Chemo Brain”.

Talking about the video, drummer Louie Newlands says : “We wanted to chuck in a short track, perhaps in the spirit of Fugazi or Yo La Tengo, and Matt had been regularly throwing this guitar chord progression into our shows for a couple of years, which he thought would have a good energy for something short, so we just matched it to a rough drum pattern and bass line and jammed it out. Lee’s chemotherapy left him with a condition called ‘chemo brain’ which means that he is prone to episodes of having a sudden mental block of where he is or what he’s doing – a kind of true brain freeze. This is partly why Lee’s bass is usually a bassline repeated over and over again. After we played our third gig supporting The Fall, Lee drove home and had to pull over because he didn’t recognise the road he was on, even though he drives it every day. He also got pulled over by the police after a gig in Plymouth and had to explain why he was driving around looking a little lost. Lee says that the way the end of the track turned out in the mixing and mastering, with feedback building up and stopping the track suddenly is similar to how it feels to have these episodes.”

The band also head out on a short tour of the UK from Saturday, calling in at the following:

October 23 Falmouth Woodlane Social Club

October 24 Manchester The Peer Hat

October 26 Glasgow The Hug And Pint (w/ bdrmm)

October 27 London The Social (w/ Sennen)

October 29 Nottingham Rough Trade (w/ Sennen)

October 30 Birkenhead Future Yard (w/ bdrmm)

Mildred Maude Bandcamp

Sonic Cathedral official website