AltPop

Perched on the edge of an expensively upholstered booth in a central London restaurant, Allie X – dressed like Wednesday Addams’s older sister in a crushed black velvet dress and round glasses – is rattling off the C-word with giddy abandon. Her latest single, the camp, synth-slathered 80s throwback Off With Her Tits, has just landed on streaming platforms after days of hyperbolic teasing and she’s feeling “unhinged”.“I’m being really cocky about it, like: ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written,’” she laughs, having…

There’s a word in Spanish that the Chilean musician Francisca Straube frequently uses to describe herself: inquieta. It translates closest to “restless,” and it captures her creative spirit perfectly. For years, Straube was a drummer in several punk bands and indie acts, like the beloved outfit Miss Garrison. And then, around 2018, the itch came. “I think I’m restless both creatively and physically,” she says with a laugh. “I wanted to keep making songs, I wanted to play at libraries, I wanted to do shows at…

A few weeks ago, Hayden Anhedönia fainted mid-show. The 25-year-old songwriter and musician, who in the past year and a half has found sudden fame under the stage name Ethel Cain, was performing at the Sydney Opera House. Halfway through the fan-favourite A House in Nebraska, she realised something was wrong. “Every time I belted, I felt a little bit dizzier,” she recalls. “Right as I was going into the second chorus, I was like: ‘Here we go.’” And then: lights out.The Pittsburgh-based Anhedönia stresses that the incident…