“Our whole thing is that we want to make dance music feel human again,” says Porij vocalist Egg. Their furiously energetic debut album Teething starts with the pulsating bravado of ‘Marmite’ and swaggering lyrics that confidently declare, “You don’t stand a fucking chance, so let’s dance”. But the 11 tracks cover everything from uncertainty around identity to loving someone in the moment. “The whole record is 11 vignettes of me being really open about who I am as a person,” explains Egg.
It’s also the perfect record for both sweaty basement shows and the soaring euphoria of a rave, with Porij pulling influence from Mount Kimbie, The xx, Sophie, FKA Twigs and Nilüfer Yanya. There’s pop, UK Garage, dance and indie. “It’s the Porij sound, amped up.”
That Porij sound isn’t calculated, though. “All our different influences just create this wonderful mush that is distinctly Porij,” they explain. “We weren’t thinking about algorithms or anything like that. This album came from the heart, imperfections and all. It’s more mature in some ways, but it’s also more silly.”
It’s the week before Teething is released and Porij have just wrapped up the final rehearsal before a busy summer of touring kicks off. “The mood is excited. It’s fizzy. We’re nervous, but I think that’s because we care,” says Egg. “We’ve not done this before, so we’re all just kind of gently squeezing each other quite a lot.”
The band originally formed while studying at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music and bonded over a shared vision – to play dance music with real instruments. “It was all quite cute really,” says Egg. At first, that meant jam sessions in student halls, but after a friend couldn’t make a gig they’d been booked for, they offered the slot to Porij instead. “We wrote a set in a week and haven’t looked back since,” they continue. “I think you can tell that we didn’t necessarily think that it was going to get this far because we called our band Porij, spelt dumb.”
A string of buzzy singles saw the band comfortably straddling the worlds of dance and indie while a reliably glorious, inclusive live show established Porij as something very special indeed. “People just really enjoyed having that type of club escapism but at a gig,” offers Egg. Just as things were really beginning to rocket though, two members of Porij stepped away at the start of 2022, with Egg and bassist/keyboardist James Middleton soon joined by drummer Nathan Carroll and guitarist Jacob Maguire ahead of another non-stop summer of touring.
That turbulent journey helped inspire Teething, which is very much a celebration of perseverance. “The idea of fighting tooth and nail for something is a wonderful thing. There’s something really satisfying about working really hard for something, even if it can be difficult,” says Egg before describing Teething as a coming-of-age album written at a formative time in everyone’s lives.
“We were all living in different parts of the country. Most of us were living with our parents and we had no money,” says Egg. “We still don’t really have any money, mind. Teething is just about figuring out who you are when you’re in your mid-20s, bopping about the big city, trying to navigate knowing more about yourself and how beautiful and scary that is.”
“This hasn’t been an easy journey for us,” continues Egg, who had the album title before any of the songs were written. “It’s all about growth and how that growth is really painful but also really beautiful.” They admit that a lot of the lyrics are “quite bleak”, but a lot of them are also “goofy and silly. It’s just fun to have that light and dark,” they continue. “All of those emotions are so linked anyway. I happy cry a lot, and that’s a great thing. Bringing that into this record just makes the music feel more three-dimensional.”
The pointed ‘Unpredictable’ bounces between the comfort of nostalgia and the wide-eyed potential of the future, while the tightly-wound twinkle of ‘Stranger’ wrestles with gender dysphoria. ‘Ghost’ turns melancholy into sheer euphoria, ‘My Only Love’ is an “odd love song” focused on present romance rather than grand gestures, while the closing track ‘Slow Down’ is a moment of calm that follows the emotional purge that is Teething. “We had the space and freedom to have the sweaty moments, the tender moments, the moments that will make people cry and the ones that will make people move. It’s all of our silly little emotions on one album.”
Teething is a hulking, confident album. “We just felt ready,” says Egg, with Porij racking up appearances at 27 different festivals and their own headline tour in the months leading up to the album’s creation. “There wasn’t any pressure though, because I felt like I needed to write,” says Egg. The band also spent nine months in and out of co-producer David Wrench’s London studio, fully exploring every musical rabbit hole and literally throwing the kitchen sink at the record – the noise of Egg throwing spoons around the studio’s little kitchen and playing with a serrated knife can be heard on the pulsating ‘Gutter Punch’ and the hard bravado of ‘Marmite’. “Obviously you then get to the week before the album is released and you start to feel the pressure a little bit,” says Egg with a grin.
Porij should be used to a little bit of pressure by now, though. Last summer, they spent a week at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium warming the crowd up for Coldplay. “It was a phenomenal experience,” Egg explains. They didn’t start trying to write songs like ‘Yellow’ or ‘Viva La Vida’ in the weeks after the gigs, but “it definitely renewed the drive and passion.”
Teething comes when emotionally driven dance music is really having a moment, with the likes of Fred Again.., Nia Archives and Becky Hill all having a moment. “It’s worked out well, hasn’t it?” grins Egg.
“There’s such pressure for perfection nowadays, because everything is documented online. Raw, emotional dance music is about saying ‘it’s all going to be ok. You don’t have to be perfect, and you can let loose’. The fun thing about clubbing is you’re free to go as wild as you want and it’s a real celebration of not having any inhibitions,” says Egg.
A number of guitar bands like Yard Act and Vlure are also toying with giddy dance. “There’s also so much going on in the world that it can feel really overwhelming and intense because we’re just constantly being bombarded with information and opinions. Dance music just offers escapism,” they add.
That sense of unity is set to be at the heart of Porij’s upcoming run of shows. “People can expect pure joy, whether it’s emotional, spiritual or euphoric,” says Egg. “Community is also super important. I’d love for this band to really stand for inclusion. The dance music scene is one of the most welcoming scenes around, because you leave your ego at the door and you’re just there to have a good time with other people, so with Porij, you can expect pizazz and community. And maybe some tears.”
Keep up to date with the best in UK music by following us on Instagram: @whynowworld and on Twitter/X: @whynowworld
