GENN: “THERE’S SAFETY IN GIGGING”
VOCAL GIRLS caught up with Brighton band ĠENN ahead of their Sebright Arms gig to talk through the making of their forthcoming debut album Unum.
Photo credit: Jordan Core
An album was “always part of the plan” for Brighton quartet ĠENN, says vocalist Leona Farrugia. “The vision was always there.” We’re parked around a table at London’s Sebright Arms, which is steadily filling up with familiar faces – Leona stands to hug several of them – who have clearly been in the know for a while now. This is a pretty special time to be catching the band: their current set list will soon be usurped by tracks from their upcoming debut, Unum.
“Sometimes you get tangled up in thoughts of what’s on trend”, says Leona; Unum is a “middle-finger” to those external pressures, choosing to look inward instead. Despite the challenge of juggling four separate day jobs and social lives at once, the band made the decision to produce the album independently. Partly, this was to set their own pace (which is pretty damn fast, by anyone’s standards). “We wanted to take the reins”, Leanne explains. “It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever done, [and] it was definitely a lot of chaos!”
Creative control and an expanded run time (due to Covid) also gave ĠENN space to explore new themes – namely, those of selfhood and identity. The result is a layered and moving exercise in self-reflection, driven by crunching guitars and the occasional sax solo. The record’s traceable jazz influence stems from each band member growing up with the genre: drummer Sofia Cooper started out playing drums for jazz and blues; bassist Leanne Zammit worked her way through the standards required for grade exams; while Leona’s classical training naturally brought them into contact with the greats. ‘Calypso’ is one of the tracks to benefit most from this pedigree: alongside fingerstyle guitar, the warm swell of the sax solo – courtesy of the coincidentally named Oli Genn-Bash – lifts the song to cinematic heights.
As an independent project, each band member has taken on a different role: Sofia manages their socials, Leanne keeps the books, and it’s Leona who oversees their visuals. Her French hero, the New Wave film director Éric Rohmer, informed their album art, which depicts a house “on a sea of prosperity”, offering a safe haven as much as a place to become trapped in the everyday. He also inspired the album opener ‘Rohmeresse’, with its moody guitar riff and earworm, distinctly relatable chorus (‘I wanna stay in all day / I wanna sleep in all day’). Leona explains that her influences tend to be visual; part of the reason she finds herself so drawn to Rohmer is because of the way his films analyse that daily mundanity, his characters confronting existential dread that translates so universally through time and space. “And then my favourite film is The Cat in the Hat”, Sofia chimes in with a grin. Leanne shrugs: “I used to know Finding Nemo word for word!”
“Sometimes you’re too wrapped up in the conformity of normal life, and you don’t leave room for natural things to happen”
They’re all familiar with Unum’s other cinematic prompt, though: Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, whose protagonist (Adèle Haenel’s Héloise) finds a namesake in their smooth, sultry cut. “I want to leave it open to interpretation”, Leona says, shifting in her seat, “but it’s about a sexual awakening.” The film follows the chance encounter between Héloise and Noémie Merlant’s Marianne, altering the course of both their lives. “Sometimes you’re too wrapped up in the conformity of normal life, and you don’t leave room for natural things to happen”, Leona muses, “and they can be the most beautiful things.”
Back at the gig, the first band of the night has started their set, announcing their presence via the now trembling floorboards. From the sheer energy of their own live shows, I’d assumed gigging would be ĠENN’s favourite part of the project. Surprisingly, though, Leona and Leanne both confess that, if they could only save one from a burning building, they’d take writing over performing. “I’m the most myself when I’m on stage”, Leona says, but the toil of keeping up their onstage persona can be exhausting. Even just physically getting through their high-powered set is enough of a strain – she prepares for them by singing whilst doing handstands. “There’s safety in gigging”, Leanne adds. “You know the material and what’s going to happen.” From performing covers, though, they’ve realised it just doesn’t hit the same as playing songs they’ve written themselves. Performing is great, but they need the writing to make it meaningful.
“It’s very surreal knowing [Unum] will be in the world soon”, Leanne tells me. It’s been part of the plan even before the days of Liminal, their groovy 2021 EP, and is the product of several years’ worth of work. “Songwriting is a very non-linear process”, she reasons; as such, several “old gems” from the offcuts of their EP found their way into Unum, which is perhaps how the band have maintained such an impressive cohesion through their still evolving sound. “[Unum takes] the best elements of Liminal”, Leona nods in agreement.
The starkest difference between the two projects was in their conception. Liminal was born in the forced isolation of the pandemic, with the band sending demos back and forth to one another and performing live-streamed gigs to an empty room. They still produced an impressive body of work, including the frantic ‘Catalyst’ and the swaggering, politically-charged ‘23rd March’. However, writing in person is undoubtedly their preferred method: Sofia explains that “some of the best songs we’ve written have been when we’re in the room jamming together.” Still, they admit that the involuntary slow-down might have been a blessing in disguise: 2019 was a year stacked high with live shows; Leanne and Leona were in the middle of orchestrating their respective moves to Brighton; and Leona was working as an air hostess, fitting in gigs between shifts. They needed a break. “Maybe not a year and a half, though!” Sofia hurriedly clarifies.
The pint glasses on our table are now empty, the pub around us clearing out as people pour into the dark, sweaty madness of the venue’s basement. Guitarist Janelle Borg, who fell victim to air traffic delays on her way back from a TWICE gig in Berlin, has finally made it to the pub. Amidst the chaos, our conversation’s been derailed twice – once by a dog walking past, once by a discussion of everyone’s favourite queer cinema and whether it was Rachel Weisz or Carla Gugino that starred in The Haunting of Hill House. But before leaving them to get ready for their set, I wonder if they have any dream gigs pencilled into their future. A Tiny Desk show or End Of The Road slot would do nicely for Sofia and Leona, but they’d all happily accept dates at Camden’s Roundhouse. And if they can keep up the passion driving Unum, odds are that we’ll see them there.
