The Current presents

Wet Leg

with mary in the junkyard

Doors 7:00 p.m. | Show 8:00 p.m. | 18+

INFORMATION | TICKETS

Wet Leg

Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers each wear a small gold necklace made by Hester: one that says Wet, and one that says Leg. They only released their debut single, "Chaise Longue", in June 2021, but its dry wit, Mean Girls nod, and thumping indie-disco beat turned it into a runaway hit. They were on the radio every time you turned it on. They did Jools Holland and Seth Meyers, supported everyone from CHVRCHES to Inhaler, sold out their entire 2022 tour despite only having two songs out in the world ("Wet Dream" followed in September, another absolute corker), and now have all the makings of the pop stars you’ve been waiting years to discover. Would you like them to assign someone to worry your mother? By the time festivals resumed last year, everyone who saw them had an answer: yes please.

“It all seems so long ago now,” says Rhian, still a little stunned by the rapid pace of it all. It has only been five months. “There have been so many firsts for us since then,” decides Hester, “that it makes it feel like time has moved... differently.”

The next first will be their debut album, Wet Leg, an instant classic that peels back the layers of the band to reveal the smart, dark heart at the centre of it. Wet Leg was mostly recorded in London, in April 2021, meaning they had a finished album before the world had even heard "Chaise Longue". “I guess how it happened was unconventional,” says Hester. They knew they were onto something special, and wanted to strike while the iron was hot. “We thought, we’ve got to record this stuff so it’s locked in. Let’s not waste time. And we weren’t able to gig either, so it was a good use of time, before we could get out to play the songs.”

The duo chose Dan Carey (Squid, Fontaines DC) to produce the bulk of it. They liked his style. “Dan said it was important to keep things moving, if we get in a cycle of takes, to stop and go on to something else, so you don’t freak out. It really works,” says Hester. In part, they picked him because they liked his set-up. His studio was an open space, with no glass between them, no one wearing headphones or doing their part separately, behind glass. That wouldn’t have suited them. “This was a different experience from the get-go. We just trusted in him,” says Rhian. They had recorded a lot of their demos at home, on Garageband, and a lot of audio from those sessions was reused, rather than rerecorded. “They were super scrappy, but they already had an identity to them,” Rhian explains.

From the paintings by Hester for the artwork of both "Chaise Longue" and "Wet Dream", and the accompanying videos been directed by Rhian, Wet Leg’s identity is ever-evolving, but distinct. “Like, surrealist prairie, but with lobster claws. It’s very dreamy,” says Hester. If you pick up a sinister vibe from their countryside children-of-the-corn setting, that might not be accidental. Rhian researched cults and baptisms, and they have taken the concept through to the video for current single "Too Late Now". But for the album artwork, they’ve kept it simple. “It’s a photo of me and Hester, just after we’d come off stage. I’ve got my arm around her waist, and she’s got her arm over my shoulder, and we’re hunched over...” says Rhian, before Hester finishes her sentence: “Like we’re telling each other a secret.” The image is a perfect visual representation of their friendship and all things Wet Leg.

mary in the junkyard

mary in the junkyard is one of the brightest new creative forces in the UK, a young group who blur the lines between leftfield experimentation and moments of melodic storytelling that evoke a vivid sense of place.