The Last Dinner Party: A band who look set to explode
The Last Dinner Party are about to release their debut album. Picture: Ian West
Their name has been bounced around music circles for the last number of years, but in the past 12 months The Last Dinner Party have cemented themselves as a force to be reckoned with.
The quintet, who branch across genres ranging from indie, rock and baroque pop to name a few, have toured the UK and US, performed at Glastonbury, scooped the coveted Brit Awards Rising Star prize and topped it off with winning the BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2024. They popped up at Musgrave Park in Cork last year supporting Florence & the Machine.
“Whenever anyone asks, the first immediate thought that springs to mind is – overwhelmed, surreal”, says lead singer Abigail Morris as she reflects on the group’s swift rise. “It feels like you’re being hit by wave after wave of just insane stuff. But the great thing is, because there’s five of us, there is a sense of normality and of being able to handle everything.
“I think if it was just one of us and this was all happening, I think you’d be a bit more untethered to reality, perhaps. We have a group chat where we talk about how weird it is and send a meme and talk about what we’re going to wear the next night, so we can make things normal for each other.”
Consisting of Morris, guitarist Lizzie Mayland, guitarist Emily Roberts, bassist Georgia Davies and keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, the female and non-binary group, who are all in their 20s, formed, as many British bands do, at university. They rose to prominence with their catchy alt-pop debut single Nothing Matters, which features soaring vocals, guitar solos and lyrics that explore the thrill of being all-in on someone.
After its release last April, they followed it up with four more tracks that have continued to catch the eye of music lovers and industry professionals alike. Their high-energy live performances and commitment to Renaissance style costumes garnered them further attention, propelling them into the stratosphere.
Morris confirms my suspicions that their aesthetic was fostered in their adolescence when they grew up with unrestricted access to Tumblr, a blogging platform for self-expression and a treasure-trove of the weird and wonderful that had teens in the 2010s hooked.
“You put everything together in a collage in a way that hasn’t been done before, and it’s not pastiche, and it’s not redoing”, she says of their artistic approach. “It’s a reinvention of styles and looks that have come before that we Magpie into something that’s a new Frankenstein thing.” While their lyrics are often born from personal experiences and emotions, with Morris regularly turning to her diaries for inspiration, having put her thoughts to paper since she was 14-years-old.
However, their creative process pulls on each member’s talents to produce a sound which Morris describes as an “overarching maximalism” with a “curiosity for experimenting”.
Their forthcoming debut studio album, Prelude To Ecstasy, embodies this. Its 12 tracks offer a theatrical spectacle which opens with the cinematic Prelude before launching into the euphoric Burn Alive and Caesar On A TV Screen. While tender moments in songs like On Your Side are balanced with the exuberant energy in acclaimed singles Sinner and Nothing Matters.
“The thing that brings the whole album together is that every song is an exploration of every facet of ecstasy”, Morris explains. “Whether it’s what one thinks of when one thinks of ecstasy, which is euphoria and joy and dancing and outpouring of pleasure. But there’s also the other side of it, which is the ecstatic pain in an almost religious way, and grief and suffering and bloodletting. And I think that’s part of it as well.”
How are they feeling about the release with so many eyes on them? “I don’t think we feel a real fear about ‘Oh how’s it going to be received?'”, the singers says candidly.
“Because we just care about the album that we’ve created, which is something we’re just really proud of. And we know it’s good, and we believe it to be good, and we believe its the best thing we could have done with that time.” In the midst of this whirlwind, the group have been offered some sage advise from female artists who had trod the path before them, including fellow Brit Rising Star alumnus Florence + The Machine.
The singer, who they supported for a number of shows last summer besides the Cork one, has been a “very comforting and inspiring presence”, Morris says.
“One of the best things she ever said, which would sound cliche or meaningless coming from anyone else, but it meant so much coming from her, was just to trust your gut, and do what you think is right”, she recalls. “Because when you’re at a time like this and there’s so many voices, you have a label, and you have fans, and you have so many people that have an opinion on what you should and shouldn’t do, and trying to advise you and do the best for you, because everyone wants you to do well.
“But sometimes we’ve been advised to do things, not anything serious, but certain decisions that haven’t sat right with us. And by trusting our instincts and listening to each other, I think that stands us in good stead for the future. To stand up for what we believe is right, because we’re the ones doing this, we’re the ones whose legacy or career this is.”
The singer notes the particular importance of holding firm on this as a young woman in the industry.
“All the men on our team are wonderful, but you still have to really stand up for yourself and trust yourself”, she adds.
From her experience of riding this wave, Morris also advises new bands to play live as much as they can and to be committed to their artform. “I think you just have to be utterly devoted and obsessed to your art and your passion without thinking about how it’s going to be perceived first, because that’s the only thing that’s going to last and that will keep you going”, she muses.
“If you do it for any other reason, you’ll get to whatever point and you’ll be disappointed because you get massive success and it feels empty because it doesn’t mean anything to you. Or you fail, and then you’re disappointed because you’re like ‘Well, I didn’t even care about this that much. I just wanted money’. So I think just play live a lot and be sincere, be very sincere.”
Alongside their songwriting process, she feels performing live is one of the instances when they feel most fulfilled. And they will get the chance to live this out many more times in the coming year as they are playing across the UK, Europe, US and Canada throughout the year, with a further 16-date headline UK tour recently announced for the autumn. With their new album, tour dates and a slot booked in for Coachella, 2024 is already shaping up to be another lively year for the quintet.
“Honestly, after last year, we can’t expect anything”, Morris tells me over the phone from the back of a taxi in-between events, indicative of their hectic life.
“There’s no 2024 bingo card anymore because every week something mental happens and you can’t really plan. So I think we’re just happily curious. We’re excited to go back to America, do more festivals, keep writing. We’re just open and excited.”
- The Last Dinner Party’s album Prelude To Ecstasy is out on February 2. They play the Olympia in Dublin on October 7
