‘I feel like we’re going through a bit of an identity crisis,’ Aedan ‘Willy’ Wilson, bassist for Isabella Strange claims. For most other bands, such a statement would be cause for alarm, but for this young central-belt four-piece it’s a sign of a musical style firing in myriad directions. Although they formed with a strict punk aesthetic, their debut EP Slick Git, released at the start of this year, cast its net wide while maintaining a tone that’s simultaneously raucous, literate and unafraid of melding genres.

‘I always find myself in the position where someone’s like, “that was a really great set,”’ bandleader Kira Wolfe-Murray says. ‘And then they come up with some random sub-genre that I’ve never heard of to suggest that’s how we sound. It’s kind of cool because I don’t feel like we can define ourselves yet, which is really exciting.’ 

Though still exploring their personality, Isabella Strange is a project that’s been evolving since lockdown, when they began writing music together on a collaborative software called Soundtrap. ‘It’s very basic stuff,’ says drummer Louis Muller-Stuart. ‘It’s set up so that you can use it almost like a game. But you can record and edit tracks in real time with people that you invite. We’d make these tunes and they’d be really scrappy. Then we had a problem we called “the Soundtrap effect”, where we’d try to play those songs live and they just wouldn’t work. But my dad had an office that was completely unoccupied, so once things started to get more relaxed, we started meeting up and playing.’ 

From there, they’ve become an invigorating fixture around Scotland’s live music scene, developing an art-rock sensibility that draws on the Gen X iteration of punk and grunge that emerged from the US and spread its tendrils across the UK. Squint your ears and EP opener ‘Sally’s Day’ could almost be a Pixies deep cut, while ‘Slick Git’ feels like a love letter to Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth, Murray’s untamed vocals bearing comparison with PJ Harvey’s early work. The EP’s clear standout, however, is ‘Karma 5’, an ambitious anxiety-rock banger with a forbidding bass line, fretful lyrics, a guitar hook that climbs towards ever-threatening peaks and porous dynamics. ‘That song felt like a different vibe to what we’ve made before; I was being a lot more honest in my lyrics,’ says Murray. ‘The whole song is anxious. I think we’ve made something quite powerful with it.’ 

More retiring than your average band, there’s a sense that the release of Isabella Strange’s first EP is also the sign of an act finding its confidence in the art scene. ‘There are so many creatives in the central belt and it’s so cool to be more immersed in that,’ Murray notes. ‘I remember a few times early on, we were quite insular and just not speaking to other bands,’ Muller-Stuart chimes in. ‘But since the EP came out, we’re now meeting people that are quite inspiring.’ 

Isabella Strange play The Paper Factory, Edinburgh, Thursday 12 June.