Listening to your music makes me feel like I’m dying and coming back to life again.” This was written by one Jockstrap fan on the back of a handmade badge that was gifted to them after a recent show in Chicago. Georgia Ellery, vocalist and violinist of the alternative electro-pop duo, holds the souvenir up to her laptop camera for me to see, while producer Taylor Skye peers in from another square on Zoom. Admittedly, rebirth is a dramatic image, but words don’t exactly come easy when trying to describe Jockstrap’s abstract offering, which spans everything from classical to techno. “I like music where anything could happen at any moment and you don’t know what’s going on,” says Skye.
It’s fitting, then, that the past few years have been fairly erratic for the pair who are both 25. Since the release of their debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, in 2022, the duo have gained significant momentum, and were recently shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, alongside Arctic Monkeys and Jessie Ware. Not that the buzz around Jockstrap has affected them. In conversation, they are blasé, insouciant even. Sentences are short and succinct; they let their music do the talking. Playing live has become daily life, with a packed schedule of touring and festivals that includes a forthcoming slot at the Welsh alternative offering Green Man. A few weeks ago, Jockstrap supported Blur at Wembley Stadium (“Good,” they answer casually when asked what it was like to play the historic venue). Before that was a live broadcast from Glastonbury, where Ellery performed not once, but twice – both in Jockstrap and as a member of south London’s Black Country New Road. The band also now have an established and loyal fanbase. “The audience is on our side already and I don’t think I’ve got used to that.”
