One of my ones to watch for 2025, TTSSFU, have shared details of their forthcoming new EP, Blown released on 29th August through Partisan records. it features seven new tracks by the Wigan born musician, Tasmin Stephens (TTSSFU). Plus a UK headline tour in support of it in November.
The first single from the EP is the brilliant ‘Call U Back’, co-produced by Chris Ryan (Just Mustard, Cardinals, New Dad). Watch the lyric video below. With scampering and nimble bass lines, quick stepping drums, shivering with twitching licks, it chases after you down shadowy back alleyways. While Stephens’ vocal scythes through the atmosphere carrying an anxious whisper that swells into an earworm mantra as she tries to hang onto a semblance of unrequited feelings, that are left unreturned. There are echoes of The Cure, Slowdive and early Throwing Muses, TTSSFU, show off an inner steel and a vivid personality that makes them stand apart in the so-called dream pop or shoegaze realms. This hook-laden, fever dream bristles with restless disappointment and tantalisingly displays a genuine knack for turning trauma into bracing songs.
TTSSFU on the new single says, “Call U Back is a song about when you really like someone and you chase them around to try and make it work, but end up just making a fool of yourself by holding onto the slightest chance of it working.
“When you listen to it, imagine you’re drunk on a night out at the point that things slowly start to just feel awful..“
In a little over a year performing as TTSSFU, Tasmin has played sold out headline dates across the UK, with support slots alongside Kim Deal, English Teacher, Mannequin Pussy, and Soccer Mommy.
Having gone into the EP intending to, “write some pop songs and something happy”, what came out was altogether more realistic of her songwriting approach. It’s a real-time document of Tasmin’s life in all its messy contradictions, pieced together by her diverse musicality and a souped-up sonic palette, thanks to mixing by Chris Ryan.
Tasmin demands attention, and will be quick to receive it. Her aesthetic, hyper-specific and often unsettling, is imbued with an innate love of analogue horror and the intoxicating glitch and noise of early internet yore. A whirlpool of chaotic energy.
TTSSFU follows the release of the EP with a series of European live dates followed by a UK tour in November. The five-date UK run calls at The Lower Third in London on 11th November and concludes with a hometown show at Manchester’s White Hotel on 27th November.
A fan pre-sale for the UK headline live dates can be accessed by signing up via the Call U Back hotline (+44 7356 233183), with fans receiving a link on Thursday 17th July via SMS ahead of tickets going on general sale from Friday 18th July at 10am via here
‘Blown’ EP Tracklisting: Cat Piss Junkie / Forever / Sick / Everything / Call U Back / Weekend / Being Young
TTSSFU UK Live Dates:
NOVEMBER
9th – The Attic, Leeds
10th – Strange Brew, Bristol
11th – Lower Third, London
15th -King Tuts, Glasgow
27th – White Hotel, Manchester
Photo Credit: Henry Collier
