Soft Rock of England: the mysterious quest to find Thy Slaughter

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Alaska Reid is an LA-based artist and PC Music affiliate. Here, she pens a fictional encounter with Thy Slaughter, the collaborative project from A. G. Cook and Easyfun, featuring appearances by Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek

It was nearing Halloween and I was sitting in a pub near Russell Square waiting for a roast. I had come to London to get the scoop on Thy Slaughter, an occultish new band led by two strange musicians known for quilling experimental pop hits. There’s an unmistakable Englishness about them, but not cozy, more like the charcoal patina that seems to cling to the old stone buildings here. In fact, I sensed something older, more ancient and more noble. Perhaps they drew their power from druid stones, from pagan sources, where everything is timeless, powerful and immovable. I chewed on my Yorkshire pudding and gave it some thought. Dazed had tasked me with this interview and yet EASYFUN and A. G. [Cook] had never responded to my emails, nor did they respond to the wax-sealed letters that I hoped would entice them. It was aggravating, because I knew they were around; catching tubes, playing endless guitar riffs in some windowless studio, and skulking into the occasional club night. I’d have to find them the old-fashioned way, feet on the ground, questions to those nearest. I needed to think about the music. It was crunchy, it was hooky and it was rife with details of their escapades as British bards. Moreover, their songcraft harkened back to a past made of noble knights, Fae realms and otherworldly emotions. I paid my tab and left, buttoning up my coat. It hit me, as I looked up at the glow of Kings Cross’ clock tower, that maybe the best place to start was with some of the mysterious group’s collaborators.

First I would approach Caroline Polachek, whose crystal bell of a voice was so illustrious that people often wondered if it was a spiritual relic from the days before language. It was her signature cry that featured on “Immortal”, one of the leading numbers on Thy Slaughter’s album, Soft Rock. I had read somewhere that one of her favourite studios in London was called The Parsnip, so after charming the people at the desk with my American bravado (or maybe they just really wanted me gone) I got the information that she was likely to be shopping at dusk on Portobello Road. I would intercept her, maybe also catching Ser Daniel Harleton (aka Danny L Harle), her collaborator and friend. 

I caught a carriage and eventually found myself walking down that cobbled stretch of Portobello, thinking to myself, “If I were Caroline where would I be shopping?” I checked out a dozen stalls, some with beautiful glass doorknobs, others with baked goods or herbs, some with vendors hawking their watch repair skills. Finally as dusk was settling into a deep violet, I heard a sound that reverberated through my heart. The chime floated clearly above the shouting and laughing of the market. I ran toward the sound, certain that it was Caroline. I found her shrouded in a diaphanous bone-coloured silk, like one of Edward-Burne Jones’ reclining figures. Her hair was the colour of polished mahogany and her eyes were shockingly blue. She was holding a silver bell up to the twilight, examining its engravings. She turned to me, as I stood awkwardly at her side. She said something… was it in Latin? No, I realised. The sound then changed to a bunch of tinkling bells before becoming birdsong. I stared at her. She switched to English and said, “The silver bells have a more articulated sound. This is what I always look for”. 

I explained who I was and asked the inevitable questions, “Thy Slaughter, have you seen them? Where can I find them?” 

“I’ve been told who you are!” she exclaimed. “In the underworld playing your guitar.” 

“Yes, I do play guitar, but I haven’t played Underworld yet.” I mumbled, laughing at my bad pun.

“The lyrics are the key. You will find information about Thy Slaughter within.” Then with a look of wisdom and sympathy on her face she continued, “I cannot tell you any more.”

She withdrew a few pressed golden coins from a leather pouch at her side, passed them to the young woman behind the stall, and took the bell. As she turned to leave, I realised she had been standing next to a tall man with dark, curly hair and full metal plate armor, Ser Daniel Harleton. She rang her newly acquired silver bell and began to slip away, unconsciously humming “Immortal”. The sky suddenly turned dark as if Caroline had been instructing dusk to hang on for a bit longer. I hailed a cab.

It began to rain as the driver curved through endlessly twisting streets. I needed to find Ellie Rowsell, the singer of “Lost Everything”. Maybe she could tell me what Caroline could not and lead me to A. G. and EASYFUN. I was glad that it had turned dark, as I had heard that Ellie was nocturnal, only emerging from her dwellings to hang out in Camden Town’s eventide gloom. 

I stopped outside a grimy-looking storefront with a sign that was a giant moulded boot and paid the cab. This was a very different scene from the market. There were shadows everywhere and people laughing in the street, sloshing drinks and throwing punches. I walked for a bit and found a corner pub called The Beagle that emanated a warm, yellow glow. When I walked in I sensed a certain edginess, but I went to the bar and ordered my usual half pint of Guinness. The barkeep gave me the googly eye for my strange order but, upon digesting my accent, he accepted it with grace. I leaned over and asked for the whereabouts of Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice. He chuckled low, “The one from the travelling group, ahhh yes. We call her Goblin Girl. She drinks with the pirates in the back”. He gestured for me to duck under the bar and then led me through a narrow hallway, our feet creaking on the grubby carpet. He pushed open a battered wooden door that was affixed with a leather strap and then walked away. 

The room was filled with some hard-looking characters. Figures with broken teeth and piercings. I very duly noted that almost everyone was armed as well. Big curved swords or bejewelled daggers hung from everyone’s hips. There were two tables, one with meat and beer, the other featuring some game of dice and bones. Velvet couches lined the room, half covered in heavy red curtains. I had no choice but to say, “I’m looking for Ellie”. The pirates chuckled and one particularly tough-looking woman began to cackle, stomping on the ground with her big boot. Then I felt someone’s nails on my arm, I turned and saw her. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the smoky light so I couldn’t really make out much detail besides her eyes. “Come, I know who you are,“ she said. “Let’s go some place quiet to talk.” 

She led me out a back door, shouting her goodbyes. The alleyway smelled like urine and vomit and some weird fog drifted from one of the neighbouring buildings. “I shall sing you the story and make you a brew, come to my house,” she intoned, hailing a Northbound carriage. As we neared her abode, she blindfolded me with a scrap of silk that appeared from nowhere. “Hanging with the band of the Jolly Nine, I have to keep a very private life,” she said, apologetically. 

Finally, I was led to a room and placed in an armchair. The blindfold was taken off.  I saw beautiful paned glass windows reaching to the ceiling. A large stringed instrument on a green cloth sat across from me. The surrounding walls were filled with shelves, overburdened with books, trinkets and skulls. I looked down and admired the old wooden floor. I noted, with some alarm, that there were many deep scratches in the floorboards, like some animal had clawed its way across. “Big dog, you must have here,” I said. Ellie didn’t respond, and instead procured a small stool and sat next to her instrument. Was it a guitar or a harp? I couldn’t tell. I started to ask her about Thy Slaughter’s whereabouts and she laughed. 

In the lamplight, I was finally able to study her. She had light green eyes and high cheekbones. Her face was still sectioned off in shadows and did not seem wholly human. Perhaps she was Faekind. “I hath spent years traveling the world with my brothers, but my heart lies here with my harptar and my books,” she said, with a sigh. “Thy Slaughter had me singing in ways I had never before. When we met, they told me that I was going to help finish a song they had started many moons ago.” Her eyes were far away, and I realised she wasn’t talking to me, she was reliving it. “I shall play you the song!” she howled as she began strumming her harptar, almost in a trance. 

The clock struck 11:30 and then things got weird. The glowy reminisce in her eyes disappeared. “We must leave,” she said, almost growling. She snatched my arm and covered my eyes with her hand, half dragging me out of her house, down some steps, until, breathing hard, I felt my leg scratch a bramble. I noticed that the moon was the tiniest crescent in the sky and through the sliver of moonlight I saw her eyes now, turned black. “I must depart. Follow the path of the Heath and you will find a way out.” The nails grabbing my arm became incredibly sharp and I heard guttural noises from a nearby bush. I saw the glint of sharp teeth and all of a sudden she was running away with whatever creature was in the bush. I remembered the words of the barkeep. 

I found my way back to my bedsit hotel and passed out. The time had come to find Charlotte the XCX and close in on the mysteries of Thy Slaughter. I woke up at 3am and headed to the Tower of London. Surprisingly enough I didn’t have to hunt Charli down. Georgia, a mutual friend of ours who was the keeper of Charli’s canine beast and a merchant of magical antiquities, told me where she would be. I arrived and was sufficiently creeped out. It was still dark and a mist enveloped the tall stone towers. I knocked on the first available door and it swung open. 

A shadowy figure said, “I will take you to her.” We climbed steps and steps and I regretted drinking a beer. A new queasiness began to tangle my jet-lagged daze. We pushed through a door at the top of the tower. Charli was standing with her hips pressed against the stone castellations and arms raised high in the air. I heard a bird cry above us and saw that a raven had landed on her forearm. She turned to me and I saw that she was in a long black dress with silver heeled boots. A small but ornate silver cross hung from her neck. She looked at me through black-rimmed eyes and said in a husky voice, 

“Hi, I’m Charli”. I stated my piece as she lit a cigarette and gazed at the stars. “I have written for a very long time with A. G. and EASYFUN too. It’s like a fountain or a natural spring, the ideas just come. They build these soundscapes that I cannot help but respond to. It’s a mystery.” 

“Is it magic?” I asked her. She shook her head, dismissing the entire notion. The sky began to brighten, and I realised that she had probably been up all night and had no plans of sleeping still. The noise of the ravens got louder and louder as she stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. A touch on my shoulder from the man of shadows told me that it was time to go. I left Charli staring up at the sky, smoking and watching the ravens circle pale stars. 

In the dawn, I decided to find a park to sit in and collect my thoughts. One thing was for sure, Thy Slaughter’s world was carefully curated and filled with odd characters. I had gotten insight, sure, but not any exact information about the boys. I needed to change tactics. I left the Heath and killed some time window-shopping while the events of the previous night swirled around in my mind. I had heard that one of Thy Slaughter’s favourite haunts was an occult bookshop near Tottenham Court Road called Meadwell’s. Meadwell’s contained a basement where various Wicca-eqsue activities were purported to be conducted. I exited Tottenham Court Road Station and found my way there. A small bell rang as I entered the door. It smelled of herbs and incense, but not the hippy kind. The lighting was dim yet bright enough for me to see the meticulously labelled shelves with categories like “Druids”, “Sex and Love Magic” and “Scotland”. I browsed for a second, but the person at the desk clearly knew that I had something else in mind. Their wary eyes watched me as I orbited the store. I picked up a small jar labelled “Wolf Bane” and moved to the desk. 

“One thing was for sure, Thy Slaughter’s world was carefully curated and filled with odd characters”

As they rang me up, I decided to approach the topic directly, “I’m looking for Thy Slaughter and I heard they frequent this place.” The person at the desk rolled their purple-lined eyes.

“I don’t own this place, but Ella can help you,” 

Downstairs to the fabled basement I went. The air became thicker, damp and moldy. I could brush my hand against the rough stone on the walls. I wondered why it felt like I was entering a dungeon. Not a “dungeon”, but a serious D&D, lock-away-your-prisoner, meet a chimera kind of dungeon. My too-cool guide deposited me at the bottom of the stairs and I entered a room draped in autumnal coloured scarves giving the place the feeling of a lavish subterranean tent. 

“Hello, what can I help you with? I’m Ella by the way,” said a woman with her back to me. She was sorting various vials of herbs and labeling them. I said my bit, which was sounding increasingly desperate. It seemed like I was always just trailing a scent, like a sad hound. She turned around and I saw that she indeed had a magical quality to her, something in her shifting gaze, as if she was living between two astral planes. She was both grounded and ethereal with her dark hair and darker eyes. As she opened her mouth to speak I saw she had what looked like fangs. 

“Aw love, you missed them. Are you a fan? Their book signing was yesterday.” 

“Book signing?!” I was completely taken aback. “I’m talking about the musicians, Thy Slaughter, A. G. Cook & EASYFUN.” 

She smiled at me as if I were a confused child and explained that yes indeed it was the same and the only Thy Slaughter and that they had a book that was becoming a smash hit in the occult world for those interested in the origins of music. The signing had taken place yesterday for their book called How Music Ruined Music. She looked at me with pity and picked up a wrecked manuscript that was sitting on the herb-sorting table. 

“Here you go,” she said. “They left their original manuscript behind. Feel free to peruse it.”

I grabbed the book from her hand and saw a golden snake ring flash on her finger. The manuscript was thick and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the full sense of it right away. The first page looked like a bunch of runes annotating a piece of sheet music. The pages had a rumpled bunched up look about them — a water stain. How odd, this manuscript must have been soaked at one point. I studied the water bent pages closer and in a stroke of investigative brilliance, I licked the corner of the page. Salt… It was saltwater? It clicked, Thy Slaughter’s majestic boat imagery, saltwater stained pages… I needed to get to the Thames, and the salty part at that. I called out a thanks to Ella and turned to run up the steps and out of Meadwell’s, but Ella’s golden-ringed fingers stopped me.  She carefully collected the manuscript like some spectral spider. As she did this, a little paper slip fluttered down from between the pages. She was already turning away as I bent over to pick it up, securing it in my pocket before running back up the stairs. 

A tube ride later and I was standing over the Thames. I looked at my mental picture of the manuscript. I could smell the slight sea saltiness of this strange river. A river that had witnessed much and probably carried secrets along in its tidal currents. My fingers found the curling paper in my pocket and I finally drew it out to look at it. I saw that I had missed a faint sketch which must have been done with a dull pencil. The sketch depicted a large chunk of rock with two rectangular spaces like eye sockets. Was the Thames the wrong place?  All of a sudden I heard the beginning of “Reign” with those warbly guitar notes. Where could it be coming from? I looked down the bank and saw a little yellow and blue ice cream truck parked by the concrete-confined water. I walked over and stood in the two-person line and ordered a cone. The ice cream man turned up the song over the speaker and swayed as he twirled the cone under the soft serve machine. I wondered to myself, why was London starting to feel like a small town? 

With a Mr. Whippy and that small pencil nub sketch in hand I headed toward the British Library. I cracked open a couple books on England’s geography and relented by showing the paper slip scrawl to one of the librarians, who promptly led me to a book about England’s National Trust properties. I found a picture similar to the drawing, it was of a place called Winspit Quarry, on the cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck.

After a complex arrangement of trains and a long walk, mostly down blackberry-lined dirt lanes, I saw the quarry. It looked like the Sutton Hoo helmet reimagined in rock. Anxiously, I walked down toward the dark stone entrance. The sea air was sharp and felt ancient, as if warriors and wanderers from long ago had also been touched by the same harsh breeze. I walked into the cavern and noticed that these natural columns were the only thing holding up this hefty rock. I could be smashed here like an ant. 

All of a sudden from the corner I heard “Don’t Know What You Want” as if someone was just playing it between the crashing waves. I walked around the corner and saw a perfect window of the gray blue sea. Silhouetted in this window were figures that appeared to be A. G. And EASYFUN. They were holding what appeared to be two guitars. Were they rehearsing? I quickly drew in my breath and hid behind another rock. I could see the stony walls reflected in A. G.’s spectacles. I realised I had found out so much already. It was like an old epic tale that I couldn’t bring myself to unravel. It was the past and present gelling into a world of the in-between. For a few minutes, I sat listening to their voices and laughter bounce like some advanced vocal effect against the hard earthen walls. I felt like I was intruding on some language I didn’t understand and on some friendship I could only admire from afar. I left their drawing on the ground under a pebble. I was ready to go home now, but first with a stick in the dirt, I scratched “If I Knew. Oh, If I Knew”.