Formal Sppeedwear are a band from Stoke who have released a record in 2026. With no knowledge of the band, you would assume that they are a hitherto criminally underappreciated avant garde pop band from New York who peaked in 1982. A punch card is a card with holes in patterns that represent information. It became an obsolete tool as computers took over. Punch Card is therefore an excellent name for an album by a band determined to have nothing to do with the 21st century.
‘Hit ‘n’ Run’ seems to start mid-sentence. Beck Clewlow’s vocals involve singing and a kind of melodic warning, like a paranoid neighbour telling you that your guttering has gone while insisting you sign a petition against speeding. On single ‘Who Needs Spain Ball?’ Clewlow’s half-strangled exclamation that “I wouldn’t mind feeling like that again” seems to speak for anyone currently in their 60s who just about remembers the thrill of discovering their new favourite band on The Old Grey Whistle Test. “If I knew then what I know now,” Clewlow mourns on the chorus, sounding legitimately like someone who has never had instant access to all knowledge through a handheld device in his pocket. ‘Who Needs Spain Ball?’ needs to be slotted into an ‘I Love New Wave’ documentary narrated by Paul Morley. Just for a laugh, like.
‘Indecent’ was apparently largely improvised in one take. It swaggers into view like burlesque dancers entering the stage and it evolves into an angular meltdown (“The phone is ringing off the hook”). ‘Knutmo 1-5’ is a post-punk smorgasbord with a beautiful twinkling guitar line two thirds of the way in. ‘Aardvark x2’ is agitated funk: Talking Heads and ‘Let’s Dance’ era Bowie. You might mistake single ‘A Concise History’ for being incidental music from early Grange Hill.
‘Fleas’ begins with some 20th century radio crackling and plenty of Byrne-like yelping (“You know, it’s really not cool down there.”) The intertwining guitar outro will take you by surprise and command the hairs on your neck to stand tall. If Interpol had news to celebrate, they would sound like this. After a bizarrely haunting intro, the synth-enhanced ‘Wait (Hatchet Gets A New Hide)’ becomes a ridiculously funky bop that raises the bar for Nile Rodgers. Word on the street is that ‘The Ballad Of DCB’ is about the Stoke book shop Drop City Books. There really should be more songs about book shops. If the aforementioned track was played in said shop, sales would increase by at least 15%, such is the giddy pleasure it instils and the impulsive jutting of limbs it provokes.
Kraftwerk-like shimmering synth opens ‘New Brother’, which evolves into another funky strut. On ‘Appointment’, Clewlow sings, “Can’t you see that there’s no ware in these walls? / It’s all new, baby, with so much getting through.” Ware means goods and a specific type of pottery. Given the band’s Stoke origins, the question in the chorus is another manifestation of the band’s desire to live in the past. Album closer ‘Friedrich Backs Up Nothing’ features Closer-like drums and manipulated cellos, and sounds like a hungover Bowie taunting guards while standing on the Berlin Wall at a safe distance.
Simon Reynold’s book Retromania was published 15 years ago. On Punch Card, Formal Sppeedwear demonstrate that they are outstanding impressionists. Should we sneer? Boards of Canada have made a career out of delving into the archives, and their latest album Inferno is breathtakingly brilliant. 12 years ago, Mark Fisher wrote that ‘the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia.’ So what? Who cares about what Fisher calls ‘the slow cancellation of the future’? There’s joy in finding a shiny new thing, but there’s also comfort in nostalgia, especially during a time when the future of the species is being cancelled at increasing speed by the species itself. Formal Sppeedwear are entitled to cosplay during the end times. Music, eh? It’s just a bit of fun. Isn’t it?
Punch Card is out now on Melodic Records
Tour Dates
Sat 3rd Oct 26 – Neotribe Festival
Sun 25 Oct 26 – Green Door Store – Brighton, UK
Mon 26 Oct 26 – The Bullingdon – Oxford, UK
Wed 28 Oct 26 – Crofter’s Rights – Bristol, UK
Thu 29 Oct 26 – Moth Club – London, UK
Fri 30 Oct 26 – Deaf Institute – Manchester, UK
Sat 31 Oct 26 – 1990 – Glasgow, UK
Mon 2 Nov 26 – Yellow Arch – Sheffield, UK
Tue 3 Nov 26 – District – Liverpool, UK
Wed 4 Nov 26 – Hyde Park Book Club – Leeds, UK
(tickets)
Formal Sppeedwear: Bandcamp | Instagram
Review by Neil Laurenson
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