The mesmerising, idiosyncratic DIY pop of Let’s Eat Grandma’s 2016 debut heralded a major new talent. But with their follow-up, I’m All Ears, Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth have dreamt up a classic, says Sam Willis

Sam Willis

LET’S EAT GRANDMA

It’s a warm summer evening and on the other end of the crackling phone line are Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton of Let’s Eat Grandma. We’re talking about porridge. Porridge is a curious topic to open an article about one of the UK’s most exciting acts, but this is an age of hyperbolic fanaticism, so what better to bring us back down to earth than delicious beige porridge? It gets better.

“We were in the studio with [Transgressive labelmate] SOPHIE”, says Rosa, “and I had to make her porridge, because she’d just got off a flight from LA. So I made her porridge and I put it in a Tupperware, but I forgot to take it, so she didn’t have any breakfast.” This all sounds very inconsequential, but this exchange is the fruit of self-induced lucid dreaming via hypnosis. A mirage within Rosa’s mind’s eye. “It puts your body to sleep but keeps your mind awake,” she explains. “So you keep seeing the visuals as if you were going into a dream, but you can stay awake and watch them, instead… it’s interesting that it’s connecting two big things in my life, SOPHIE and porridge.”

It’s certainly a unique and uncommon well to draw influence from, but in the context of Let’s Eat Grandma’s music and character, it makes complete sense. Consistently, Jenny and Rosa use vibrant imagery and an otherworldly mysticism as key cornerstones of their sound and thematic content. This unique tool to blur the lines between dreams and reality is an interesting analogy for their music in general.

Let’s Eat Grandma’s 2016 debut I, Gemini focused in on the former: a dreamland for “escapism”. That first record, which was lauded by critics internationally, was the culmination of years of creativity from the impressively young age of 13. It is drenched with cryptic, childlike mythology – songs about fairy tales and a celebration of youthful curiosity; a refusal to be pinned down by the fetters of convention.

Throughout its dark, chilling and distinctly British contours, I, Gemini balanced whimsy, menace and melancholy on a Fisher- Price knife edge with blistering skill. Utilising extra-long intros on a number of tracks, hand-clapping games as instrumentation and an impressively disparate selection of styles, they succeeded in making something that feels as though it’s both a total free-for-all from two people bursting at the seams with ideas, and a carefully orchestrated narrative held together by the one enduring conceit of a child’s imagination. the balance between childlikeness and impressive experimentation is consistently unsettling.