Strong images pour out of Porridge Radio singer Dana Margolin, whether in the form of poetry, paintings (seen on album covers, band merch and in original works) or vivid lyrics heard in the band’s raw and rousing discography. From their formation in 2015, this Brighton quartet have risen through the DIY ranks with three albums, the second of which (Every Bad) earned a Mercury nomination in the pandemic-plagued 2020 awards. ‘I still really love that album,’ says Margolin, who’s enjoying some downtime when I catch up with her strolling through sunny north London. ‘I’m proud of the songs but also excited about the new stuff that is, in my mind, better. I think everything we do gets better than the last thing.’ 

The pandemic gave Margolin and bandmates Georgie Stott, Maddie Ryall and Sam Yardley time to write their latest, most sophisticated album to date, last year’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, which they’ve not long finished touring around the UK and Europe. ‘I was a husk of a person when we finished. We played so many shows. So I’ve just spent a few months resting and trying to come back into myself, remembering how to be a person and enjoy my life.’ This involves spending time in her studio or out and about, usually accompanied by a notebook and pen. ‘I’ve been writing a lot of poems actually, and painting the poems. I always wanted to be a poet before anything else. I think of my songs as sound poems. Lyrics are always the bit of the song that I’m most attached to and spend most time on.’ 

^{Dana Margolin / Pictures: Matilda Hill-Jenkins}

Margolin’s lyrical prowess is evident in the sophisticated indie/post-punk of their most recent album, painting complex pictures of relationships and uncertainty for the future, using broad brushstrokes and leftfield metaphors. In lead single ‘Back To The Radio’, she sings ‘I’m trying to help without breaking or shattering’, while ‘Birthday Party’ opens with the disconcerting line ‘a fear of death/a fear of dying/why won’t the dog pick up the stick?’ before she laments ‘I don’t want to be loved/I don’t want to be loved’. 

Citing acts like Deftones and Charli XCX as major influences, Margolin also shares a great admiration for Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker’s songwriting. ‘Her lyrics are incredible, so beautiful, so evocative, and so kind of weird, weaving together all these amazing stories. She’s got her own unique style but they are really universal lyrics. People really connect to them. I have my classic cliché writing traps that I fall into, of course,’ she laughs, when asked about her own approach to crafting such visceral lyrics. ‘It doesn’t really matter whether or not it makes sense or is gonna hit someone else, as long as it carries meaning to you. A lot of the time, the things that we feel alienate us are actually the things that connect us.’ 

If live shows are anything to go by, Porridge Radio’s music certainly resonates. But it’s the vivaciousness and theatricality of their performance that makes seeing this band live a real experience. Last May they played Summerhall as part of The Great Eastern festival: ‘I think we played somewhere that used to be a horse dissection room! We all thought it was really haunted and did not enjoy that aspect of the show,’ she jokes.

Now they return to play Hidden Door in The Complex, an equally interesting but hopefully less creepy setting. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever played in a hexagon. I’m excited! We’re a very intense live band. We thrive off the energy of being in a room together. Our chemistry makes everything expand and feel really powerful. I’m excited to share that with the people of Edinburgh once again.’

Hidden Door runs from Wednesday 31 May–Sunday 4 June.