Ugly at MOTH Club
Words: Sidney Franklyn | Photographs: Gianmarco Rizzo
4th of February, MOTH Club, Hackney.
“Naaaam myo - ho ren - ge kyo … nam myoho renge kyo, nam myoho renge kyoooo!”
The traditional Buddhist chant might sound an unlikely hook, but the entirety of Hackney’s MOTH Club is heaving in a joyous sing-along. Roughly translating to “Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra”, the Japanese mantra dates back to the 13th century as an affirmation towards a path of karmic enlightenment, though its essential message – to keep your head even as life gets you down – has proved universal enough to transcend all cultural borders. Famous proponents include Tina Turner and Orlando Bloom, but tonight it’s the anthem of London-based band Ugly, delighting as their audience is whipped up into a care-free frenzy. It’s infectious.
In MOTH’s greenroom ahead of the gig, bandmate Jasmine Miller-Sauchella explains she incorporated the words into Ugly’s latest single “Sha” after being inspired by musical hero (and Buddhist) Herbie Hancock. In contrast to the riotous reception the song would receive just a few hours later, she seems surprisingly ambivalent. “It’s your song Jaz!!” cries fellow bandmate Tom Lane, suddenly come alive at the injustice. “I don't hate it,” she concedes, “I think you're always your worst critic”. When I say “Sha” is listed on the Nam myoho Wikipedia page, the band roar in disbelief – collapsing into laughter when Jaz jokes she put it there.
Their modesty is in some sense understandable. Despite embarking on several European tours, this performance at MOTH Club is the band’s first headline slot in the UK. Ugly has existed in some form since at least 2016, but only two of their six-person line-up (Sam Goater and Harrison Jones) are founding members. In 2020, the pandemic coupled with the departure of drummer Charlie Wayne (now of Black Country, New Road) obliged a period of self-reassessment.
“There was a moment where there were not gonna be any gigs for the foreseeable future”, recalls Ugly’s current drummer, Theo Guttenplan. “We had a lot of time to get to a lineup we were happy with, and to play music that wasn’t something from years ago adapted for six people, but something that actually is these six people”. 2022 saw their reinvention, the singles “Sha” and “I’m Happy You’re Here” ending nearly four years of radio silence. Ugly’s last profile was in the summer of 2019; the band I’m speaking with now is an entirely new creation.
Herbie Hancock is one in an eclectic list of influences thrown out by the band, ranging from Tom Verlaine to the Tintin animated series. Though if I consciously ask about musical reference points, they pull back. “I personally don't think that we have actually ever had that kind of conversation”, says Tom. “We've talked about eras of music – there's definitely 90s in there, and 60s folk”. “I think a lot of the time there’s faith that everyone is listening to their own stuff, and that stuff is good”, Theo weighs in.
The hesitancy to reduce their sound to just a few names might stem from previous coverage of the band. Back when Ugly was a post-punk quartet, a throwaway comment from Sam about his admiration for King Krule and The Smiths then became shorthand for all future descriptions of the group. “As soon as we had those comparisons, we were tired of them”, he says.
The fear of being pigeonholed is something still partly on the band’s radar. Just by virtue of being an art rock group in London, mentions in the same breath as black midi and Black Country, New Road are going to come with the territory (no doubt exacerbated by previously sharing a drummer with the latter). Describing one writing session, Tom recalls how the band decided to deviate away from one song idea since it felt too similar to the output of those two groups. “Obviously we really respect and love their music”, Jasmine clarifies, “we just don't want to be just another band of that scene”.
If there are comparisons to be made between Ugly and their contemporaries, they’re hardly unflattering; centrepiece to the MOTH Club setlist “I’m Happy You’re Here” is an eight-minute indie epic in the calibre of anything you’d find on Ants From Up There. As the set progresses however, those comparisons become increasingly inadequate. On “Windy”, cooed vocal harmonies gradually crescendo til the line “I see a windy sky!” is being belted back and forth between bandmates; in the coda to “The Woods & The Water”, Tom and Jasmine are cast as a pair of mythic sirens, while the crowd is lulled further into surrender by Harry Shapiro’s hypnotic bass.
The band tells me the repetitive lyrics in this part of the song are largely improvised, pulled from an arsenal of emotive terms designed to disarm the audience’s inhibitions. “We wanted to create a chant-like repetition, so when you’re listening to it, you get into a trance”, Tom explains, “that feeling of being locked-in is quite energetic, in a sinister sort of way”. Theo compares the atmosphere they try to create to a kind of cultish euphoria. “Join us”, says Jasmine with a wry smile.
As the night draws to a close, the crowd struggles to resist this invitation. The final song on Ugly’s setlist, “The Wheel”, trades in the imagery of folk horror cults, all while inducing a mass hysteria of its own. Jasmine begins to raise her hand in unison with the instruments, the tension mounting, approaching a fever-pitch. Only at breaking point does her fist come crashing down, the band emitting one last barrage of noise before cutting into silence. MOTH Club erupts.
Towards the end of the interview, conversation inevitably turns to talk of a debut album. “It does the material justice”, says Harry, his eyes focused on the dolphins and crescent moons he’s been sketching onto promotional flyers for tonight’s show. “If you don't put it on an album, then you haven't really tried to understand the world that these songs are speaking to”. This idea of a world the songs inhabit is brought up again by several other members of the band, that in spite of their idiosyncrasies, they coexist in a shared realm with each other. Trading glances at one another, there is a palpable sense of excitement at the prospect of what an Ugly album might sound like. “We’ve got a lot of pieces of the world but yeah figuring out how they fit together…” Theo starts to explain, before Tom finishes the sentence. “Tonight is a bit of a test run to see if it works”. I ask the band if they think it will, and this time it’s Jasmine who answers: “There's never really a limit to what we’re going to try”.
You can follow Ugly on Instagram and Twitter, and can find the links for the new single ‘Sha’ on all streaming platforms here.