Ü EP by The Umlauts

How refreshing amidst the backdrop of the current populist political climate to have a band like The Umlauts. Formed after meeting together at Wimbledon College of Art, but with two of their four members hailing from mainland Europe, their debut EP ‘Ü’ is a record characterised by cross-border perspectives both stylistically and thematically.

The genesis of The Umlauts resides in Stroud, where the group’s song writing duo Alfred Lear and Oliver Offord grew up and started writing together in the Gloucestershire town’s SVA Artspace. Treating the space as something of a refuge in which they could experiment, the pair delved deep into synthesisers and record collections alike, drawn to The Fall and other first generational post-punks like X-Ray Spex, as well as the likes of Bjork and The Knife.

It's at art college in London and the addition of lyricists and vocalists Annabelle Mödlinger and Maria Vittoria Faldini that’s crystallised them as a band. Their debut EP is a tightly hewn mix of mechanical synth-pop, spiky no wave and bristling post-punk, with Mödlinger and Faldini’s multilingual lyrics giving it a razor-sharp focus.

Much of the EP was completed at the PRAH studios in Margate, after initially beginning to come together over Lear and Offord’s kitchen table in Peckham, and the excitement of those overnight sessions – of four people finding themselves creatively – is evident, not least on the fuzzy subs and disorientating melodic sways of final track Remedy Song.

That The Umlauts formed and operate in the shadow of the UK leaving Europe isn’t something a trans-European group have been able to shy away from, but it’s also why they come across as a much-needed antidote. They’re a brilliantly idiosyncratic reminder of the benefits that a melting pot of cultures and cross-border perspectives can result in.