Mermaid Chunky: “You have to relish the unknown”

Delivering their layered sound with giddy theatricality and a gaudy aesthetic, more is more on Mermaid Chunky’s new debut album slif slaf slof

Mermaid Chunky’s first gig, in 2017, was at a poetry night in Stroud, a market town in the Cotswolds. The duo battered a toy rabbit against a table for percussion, forgot what they were supposed to be playing and then improvised their way out of it. Bizarre and free, it set the tone for the band. “With Mermaid Chunky, you have to relish the unknown,” says Moina Moin, “because otherwise it wouldn’t work.” 

This approach comes through on their debut album, slif slaf slof. There are touches of folk, jazz, electro and experimental pop, delivered with giddy theatricality. Moin and her partner, Freya Tate, operate loop stations, which they put through keys, synths, percussive instruments, toys – including wind-up teeth, no less – and saxophone. It’s a layered, twisted sound, stacked with their ethereal vocals.

The band’s musical approach is mirrored by their onstage personas. Dressing in elaborate homemade outfits, the look is a bizarre hybrid pitching up somewhere between Victoriana, paganism and the circus big top, with a touch of Björk. “We’re dressing up, but it doesn’t look too nice,” Moin explains. “It looks a bit wrong. It’s kind of like it could be nice but actually it looks slightly more like vomit. And that’s the aesthetic.” 

Album opener Céilí, named after the Celtic social dance, builds through the interlocking whistles of recorders; Chaperone is reminiscent of hi-NRG disco, with free-form lyrics about riding horses and spanking booty, spouted in an American accent. How would they describe it? Moin opts for “squelchy”; Tate says they’re an “experimental music duo, but more childish”. 

Whatever it is, it caught the ear of James Murphy. When the LCD Soundsystem frontman walked into a New York City coffee shop in 2022 and heard their song Friends playing, he was hypnotised by it. The track has a looping pulse to it reminiscent of bleep techno. Murphy searched for it on Shazam, ran back to his DFA record label office and played it for everyone there on repeat. 

Murphy invited them to support LCD Soundsystem at their residency at London’s Brixton Academy later that year, but there was little pressure to live up to expectations – the duo had no clue who Murphy was when he contacted them. Tate says she confused LCD Soundsystem for Ministry of Sound. They rocked up in Brixton with about 20 friends to dance on stage with them. “Management were a bit worried,” Tate recalls. “There were all these people with American accents and clipboards. It was surreal but amazing.” 

“Because the music is improvised, we’re developing it live,” explains Moin, “so it’s also made by those crowds and what they’re reacting to.” It’s not uncommon to see Mermaid Chunky’s stage filled with people dressed in wild outfits and animal heads. The frisson of the live show is rolled into slif slaf slof. “We weren’t ever aiming towards a recorded album,” Moin says. “It’s more like performance for performance sake. Live performance is the best – it can be so transcending.” Murphy kept in touch and his relentless positivity about their music paid off. The band signed to DFA in late 2023.

The pair grew up in Stroud, but they didn’t meet one another until they were in Brighton: Tate was attending university and Moin, a few years younger, was visiting. They became fast friends, bonded by surreal humour and an appetite for dressing up, and would listen to the Nigerian electro-funk of William Onyeabor and cover songs by Talking Heads. Tate is a classically trained pianist and Moin grew up going to raves; her parents ran the Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA), and hosted parties there. “I’d be in the club in my pram,” she recalls. “That was a musical education for me. I’m super lucky.” 

Stroud gave them room to explore: some songs on slif slaf slof were written seven years ago. “It’s luxurious because it’s such a small space,” Moin says of their hometown. “You can go on a real journey with your own thing. In London, you get stamped as a certain kind of band quite quickly, but [Stroud has] given us some good leeway.” 

The pair now live in London and are immersed in the creative community at the Total Refreshment Centre, a multi-purpose music space in Stoke Newington. They’ve found kindred spirits in avant circles around the Centre and have performed with The Comet Is Coming, a funky, psychedelic jazz group, and Alabaster DePlume, a jazz-meets-folk poet and saxophonist. This month, Mermaid Chunky will kick off their headline UK tour, to celebrate the release of slif slaf slof, on 13 September, at London’s Moth Club. Let the freak flags fly.

Sounds like: Thumping dance-pop for weirdos
Soundtrack for: Brat autumn
File next to: LCD Soundsystem, ESG
Our favourite song: Chaperone
Where to find them: @mermaidchunky