The Surfing Magazines

Over The Surfing Magazines

Formed in 2017, U.K. garage rock group the Surfing Magazines combine elements of surf-rock, jazz, weird pop, and Americana. Featuring two members of the Leicestershire-formed Wave Pictures (vocalist and guitarist David Tattersall and bassist Franic Rozycki), alongside the multi-instrumentalist Charles Watson from Sheffield's Slow Club, and drummer Dominic Brider, the band soon signed with Moshi Moshi. The label had already released albums from both acts, including the 2016 Wave Pictures effort Bamboo Diner in the Rain, and, that same year, the fourth and final Slow Club long-player One Day All of This Won't Matter Anymore. Taking anything from noir fiction to late-'50s/early-'60s European cinema as inspiration for lyrics, the Surfing Magazines entered the studio with fragments of ideas for songs which -- once assembled into completed pieces -- were very quickly committed to tape. This made for a wry, immediate-sounding set -- much closer in tone to that of the Wave Pictures' oeuvre -- that was released as their eponymous debut album in September 2017. For the next five years, the project went on hiatus. Watson released a post-Slow Club debut solo album in 2018 -- Now That I'm a River -- before stepping away from music for a short time. Meanwhile Rozycki and Tattersall returned to the Wave Pictures, before the latter played lead guitar on no fewer than five 2020 and 2021-issued, Bob Dylan-inspired albums by Billy Childish's William Loveday Intention. In March 2021, a regrouped Surfing Magazines issued "Sports Bar," a single that nodded to both Pavement and the Velvet Underground, and preceded their second LP, Badgers of Wymeswold, which saw the light of day later that year, a full 16 months after it was recorded in Rochester, Essex.