Mystery Jets

An eclectic English indie outfit fusing standard pop structures with swirling folk textures, indie rock drive, and post-punk edges, Mystery Jets first surfaced in the opening years of the 2000s. Built as a family endeavor around vocalist Blaine Harrison and his father Henry Harrison, the group unveiled its distinctive 1960s psych-pop sound with the 2006 debut album Making Dens. Regional recognition followed in 2008 when their third album, Twenty One, appeared and featured the hit single “Young Love” that included Laura Marling. Later releases such as Radlands in 2012 and A Billion Heartbeats in 2019 further refined their approach while folding additional progressive rock ingredients into the sound.

The Syd Barrett-inspired band actually coalesced in the mid-1990s, when shock-haired frontman Blaine Harrison was just twelve years old. Originally christened the Misery Jets after the Heathrow-bound aircraft that thundered above their Eel Pie Island home, the name was altered after Blaine accidentally misspelled “misery.” At the outset the lineup consisted of Blaine on drums, Henry on bass, and friend William Rees on guitar. Henry later moved to guitar, Kai Fish entered on bass, and Blaine shifted to keyboards. After experimenting with a drum machine and a neighborhood youngster named Max, the group settled on drummer Kapil Trevedi. The Five Tracks EP, cut soon after Trevedi’s arrival, surfaced on 679 Records in 2005, and the full-length Making Dens followed the next year. Zootime, issued by Dim Mak in spring 2007, gathered tracks from Making Dens alongside remixes and material from the 2006 EPs You Can’t Fool Me Dennis and Diamonds in the Dark. Twenty One, released in 2008, reached number 42 on the U.K. albums chart and contained the single “Young Love” that featured indie folk queen Laura Marling. Their third album, Serotonin, arrived in 2010. After a clandestine performance at the 2011 SXSW festival, the band assembled a mobile studio and tracked the Texas-informed Radlands, which appeared in April 2012. Shortly before that album’s release, Fish departed and was succeeded by Pete Cochrane for the ensuing U.K. tour. Curve of the Earth, the fifth studio album, was recorded across a three-year span that began in 2013. Issued in early 2016, the entirely self-produced set was captured in the group’s own studio and marked a decisive move into progressive rock terrain, with Harrison citing Pink Floyd and King Crimson among key influences; it also introduced new bassist Jack Flanagan. In August 2019 the band confronted the alt-right with the politically charged single “Screwdriver,” which opened their sixth album, A Billion Heartbeats.