Rough Trade Recommends presents: sunnbrella, Sex Week,Rough Trade's new music showcase returns in Nottingham with some of the best up-and-coming acts.
sunnbrella
sunnbrella is the project of Prague-born, London-based musician and producer David Zbirka. Shaped by a musical upbringing, Zbirka found early inspiration in his father's expansive record collection before discovering the emotive pull of emo, shoegaze and alternative rock—later expanded by the eclectic influences of internet-era subcultures. This foundation informs sunnbrella's sound: a genre-blurring mix of hazy guitars, club rhythms, and introspective lyricism.
Sex Week
Richard Orofino and Pearl Amanda Dickson, the duo that makes up the Brooklyn, Alternative/Indie band Sex Week.
“How do we do what we just did but better?”
A simple question animates Upper Mezzanine, the second project from Brooklyn art rock duo Sex Week, arriving via Grand Jury Music on August 1st. The band’s self-titled debut EP landed in late 2024, and as far as introductions go, set quite the bar. With the playful slowcore of “Toad Mode” and the midnight pop of “Angel Blessings” the band seemed to solidify their spot in the exciting underground of hotly-tipped NYC acts overnight. Press at FADER & Rolling Stone. Playlist covers at Spotify. Airplay on KEXP & KCRW. A US tour on the books for this Spring, and rumblings of international festivals on the horizon.
That. But better?
“The approach for Upper Mezzanine felt more inquisitive,” says co-vocalist Pearl Amanda Dickson, a relative newcomer to the songwriting world. Sex Week started in 2022 when her now-partner Richard Orofino – a prolific musician & producer since he was in grade school – fell in love with her taste via a wildly eclectic playlist she made for his roommate.
Orofino excelled at, as he put it, “honing structural strangeness into something more recognizable.” So Pearl’s precocious perspective and natural appetite for the stranger corners of music was a natural fit. That chemistry led to the whirlwind creation of their eponymous debut EP. “We’d just produce in one day and then say ‘okay, that’s done!’” says Dickson. “I’m glad people like it, but I would have different ways of going about some of those songs now.”
Time, they learned, is a necessary ingredient. “We felt we had a lot more time to live with the songs as we were creating them,” Orofino says. “It totally changed the way they ended up.”
So where the music of their debut felt like momentarily glimpses of something scary and exciting - here things feel far more visceral, each track a focused punch delivered directly from the gut. “Coat” is a defiant dirge that flirts with a peak only to submerge itself back into a sinister oblivion of grumbling synths every time. “Beethoven” is a lit match that never quite burns out, a slow-core epic chasing after a pin prick of light at the end of a hallway.
“I still want people to be singing along and taking the melodies away with them, but the darkness of this EP is obviously there,” says Dickson. “The world is scary right now. I’m scared in lots of ways, and I think that omnipresent feeling definitely snuck into Upper Mezzanine.”
Part of the band’s charm on Sex Week was how they paired those rough edges with a surprising playfulness, finding a hopeful glow in the gloom and vice versa on nearly every song. “The balance is necessary” says Orofino, “which makes it both conscious and unconscious. We are aware of it as it’s happening but it happens every time.”
Case in point: Orofino says of the boisterous, almost childlike “Coach” that they wanted the song to “sound like riding a mechanical bull,” while“Lone Wolf” needed to sound like how a dungeon feels. Two ends of the EP’s daring spectrum.
Hearing the band talk about their songs, it’s striking how much the sonic palette translates in tactile and visual terms. Perhaps a testament to their dedication to helming multiple aspects of each project, designing the art and making the videos themselves. The band shot the video for “Coat” at the opera. “It definitely had the heaviness and colors the song felt like,” says Orofino. The band says they didn’t know the mutant country “Money Man” was in the right place until all of a sudden they saw the whole music video unfurl before them.
It’s that specificity and vision, gut and intuition that makes Sex Week, and by extension their brave second EP, so special. Here Dickson learns to use her novel songwriting approach as a superpower. “It’s not second nature to me yet,” says Dickson of her songwriting ability. “So I’m always wanting to do more and be more involved than I actually have the capability to. And somehow at the same time, I still have the gusto to say ‘no that’s not it’ or ‘yes that’s it.’ “
And when they find it, Orofino harnesses his unique abilities to make the alien feel universal. “I felt it stretched me out wide creating these songs with Pearl and it just made me feel excited and hopeful that things can be weird and also totally accessible if you allow yourself to just be open.”
And with that openness, the band was able to unlock exactly how to do what they’d just done. But better.
£10 + Booking Fee
Event Venue
Rough Trade Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Tickets
