Snapped Ankles

The mysterious London-based post-punk band Snapped Ankles formed in 2011, after a few friends began to play between other artist's performances and during parties at a shared warehouse space in London's Brick Lane. Over time, the fledgling band's style began to emerge naturally, implementing homemade synths and experimental production into their songs. Along with performance art theatrics, the group cited Lightning Bolt, Fela Kuti, Morris dancing, and Old Norse texts among their influences, all of which could be discerned in some sense on their 2017 debut, Come Play the Trees. Even in the early stages of the group's development, the members had a strong sense of presentation and performance. Snapped Ankles chose to keep their true identities secret, confirming only that there were four permanent, and a few transient, members in the band. Their experience of jamming along to films at warehouse events fed into the groove-led music that would define many of their initial recordings. Their inaugural release was the 2012 single "True Ecology (S**t Everywhere)," followed by "I Want My Minutes Back," which illustrated the band's debt to the unpolished sound of post-punk and Krautrock's Motorik rhythms. Snapped Ankles quickly established a cohesive link between the music they made and the presentation of it. They paired electronic music with vintage analog percussion synths -- which they strapped to logs -- and began to perform in vegetation-aping ghillie suits, creating a 21st century pagan vibe. In 2017, the Leaf Label reissued their second single and the band's output accelerated; that same year, they put out the four-track EP The Best Light Is the Last Light. Just a short while later, Snapped Ankles released their debut long-player, Come Play the Trees. 2018 saw the release of their second EP, Violations, and in early 2019 they released sophomore LP Stunning Luxury. For their third record, 2021's Forest of Your Problems, the band unified the naturalistic vibe of their debut with themes of societal structure on their second album without losing sight of the dance-oriented escapism they had become known for. ~ Bekki Bemrose