“Last time we played Leith Depot, we came here beforehand for a herbal tea – that’s how rock ‘n’ roll here we are,” ranter-in-chief Olivia Furey admits as we catch up at Argonaut Books. Along with Matt (guitar), Calum (drums) and Henry (bass) they make up Shinlifter, a band that mix heavy dissonance and lo-fi scrappiness, yelping mundanity with poetic absurdity. But are they rock ‘n’ roll? Jury’s still out on whatever that means, but there’s no doubt this quartet are deadly serious when it comes to refining chaos into a groovy squall that does, indeed, rock.

The band has existed in some form since 2021, but people drifted in and out and the current iteration wasn’t galvanised until 2023. Matt explains: “We settled on this unit with Calum, Olivia and Henry and things started falling into place. We got our first gig in June [2024], which we felt was a bit too early, but went for it anyway and realised that we’d actually been ready for a long time. We only had four songs, but two were about ten minutes long. That time we were just going for it.” And this sense of letting the band find its sound, its path, itself, is a running theme in the origins of their music.

Olivia joined the band mostly by chance; a performance artist in her own right who deals in outre sonics rather than vocals, she heard the band through Stu Fraser (who runs Fuzzbat gigs): “I got in touch and said ‘I don’t know what I would do but can you count me in for a jam some time. I’ll show up and do something.’ I wasn’t sure what it would be, but the shouting along just stuck. [The band] want me to play something, but I just wanna dance.” “She’s our wildcard,” Matt adds, “after not really having consistent members for a couple of years we needed someone to come in and blow things up a bit. We needed momentum.”

And that progression has now led to the release of their debut double A-side, Percolator / Nandos on PX4M (7 March). “’Percolator’ is one of our oldest pieces of music,” Matt says, “it probably pre-dates everyone currently in the band and it’s evolved over time.” But that wiry frame has taken on new life from its post-rock roots with Olivia’s contribution: “ I’m a very over-caffeinated person and I found an article about someone who loved their new percolator, so I just started screaming out mundane words in a dramatic way, channelling Kevin Shields firing sound engineers while recording Loveless… it made sense at the time.”

 

After an earlier song tackled one of the greatest injustices of our time – The Darkness failing to get Christmas No. 1 – ‘Nandos’ takes an unflinching look at yet more examples of our collective cowardice in the face of clear inequity. Namely, Antz being a rip-off of A Bug’s Life and the shoddy repackaging of Nando’s by the inexplicably popular Pepe’s. These are the small details in random conversations overheard by Olivia, thought by many but voiced by few, that a person can get fixated on until they seemingly have to rage about them over a taut, motorik groove.

PX4M (Plastic People Produce Plastic Music) were a natural fit for the band as Matt explains: “I met Kieron (aka Keyron, who runs the label) through his band Dr. VZX Moist. They were one of the first I saw when I moved to Edinburgh in 2017, so I got in touch. We ended up recording with him in Leith – Olivia had to sit in the toilet next door. He’s got a great aesthetic and process, it’s lo-fi but also a bit wacky.”

Each of the band members brings experience of playing in bands or solo over the years – Calum recalls playing a show to sound engineers because his teenage band were booked to play a venue that was 18+ and none of his friends could get in – but preconceived notions are left at the door when it comes to Shinlifter. Matt recalls the early days of Calum joining the band: “I think our first interaction with him was asking ‘Do you want to listen to these demos?’ And he just said ‘no’.”

Olivia agrees with the positive turning point when Calum joined the band: “He challenged the songs and pushed us to make them better, suggesting ‘How about I play it this way?’” This gets to the heart of the band’s democratic style, “previously it was about presenting ideas that were already done and inflicting them on other people,” Matt adds, “now we try not to bring in ideas from outside, we let it happen in the room.”

Calum: “That’s true and speaks to my initial reaction of wanting to just let things happen. At first it felt like I was intruding upon these songs that already existed, which is always strange, and it took a few rehearsals [to get into the more collaborative mindset].”

Matt: “We were trying to balance songs that were finished with making new ones. But that’s how we came up with ‘Nandos’, which emerged almost fully formed during our first jam with Calum.”

Olivia: “Sometimes we’re just chatting and that becomes the song, we just go from there – a lot happens in the room.”

Calum: “Having a separate space [to rehearse] is important as music, for me, is a separate space. Music is divorced from everything else I’m doing, a very different sphere of my life. There are overlapping autonomies – we’re in the room, feeling around, recording… that’s something that’s different now. As a teenager it wasn’t as easy to record stuff so you had to show up with something prepared – now we can record, listen back in the room and work on [elements in real time].”

And now the band are honing their sound onstage, having played recently with Split Dogs at The Hug & Pint (“people were out to boogie that night”) and Big Lanes at Leith Depot. With their lethal mix of controlled chaos and unpredictable energy, Shinlifter are one to watch out for. If nothing else, you’ll learn all about percolating.

Follow them on Instagram here and pick up Percolator / Nandos (Injustice pt. 2-4) here. Catch them at The Wee Red Bar on Friday 14 March, raising funds for victims of last year’s Valencia floods – tickets here.