Led by strident visionary, Sydney Minsky-Sargeant, Working Men’s Club first found its feet in 2018.
Hailing from Todmorden in the Upper Valley, the band’s earliest incarnation also featured Giulia Bonometti on guitar and Jake Bogacki on drums.
Much like their local peers, The Orielles and The Lounge Society, the trio were still in their teens when they started out. Evidence of another Valley band bursting at the seams to unleash its creative talent.
The debut single, 2019’s Bad Blood, put down an early marker, its distinctive bulging bass and scratchy punk guitar threads underlying Syd’s acerbic, Fall-esque vocal display.
On the strength of Bad Blood they signed to Heavenly Records. Syd then swerved the band’s sound towards a distinctly more electro palette for second single, Teeth. And that’s predominantly where they’ve stayed ever since. Teeth was leased out for several remixes, which offered further signs of the clear direction Syd wanted for the band.
Somewhat unimpressed, Bonometti and Bogacki left the group. Bassist Liam Ogburn, who had just been added to the line-up, stayed on, while Syd also recruited multi-instrumentalists, Mairead O’Connor, of Moonlandingz, and Rob Graham of Drenge. (Rob has since moved aside, with Hannah Cobb stepping in).
Working Men’s Club soon set to work on their self-titled debut album, with Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, MIA, The Fall) in the producer’s chair.
Epitomising Syd’s determined singularity and independent nature, the band delayed the album’s release and put out Megamix instead, a 21-minute continuous remix of its recorded contents. Eventually issued in 2020, the first album proper is a devilish concoction of darkly seductive dance music and new-wave punk.
The album’s opening track, Valleys, captures a paradox of life in the Calder Valley that many local artists have identified: That is, while the region has given rise to a unique creative energy, its unusual climate and rare demographic can be claustrophobic. Perhaps they go hand in hand. As Syd sings: “Trapped inside a town inside my mind, stuck with no ideas I’m running out of time… The winter is a curse and the valley is my hearse.”
The third track on the album, John Cooper Clarke, was chosen as a single and it quickly propelled the band to wider audiences.
Two new tracks, the punk-soaked X and the electro-tingled Y emerged in 2021, preceding a second album, Fear Fear, which landed in 2022. On Fear Fear, with Orton again at the helm, the band take a deeper dive into layered synth work, exploring club bass and teutonic rhythms in the process, while Syd’s vocals shine with a new-found atmospheric gloss.
Since Fear Fear, Syd has been busy collaborating in the studio. A plethora of remixes have followed – reworkings of WMC tracks as well as WMC treatments of other artists’ work. Most notably, and most recently, was the 2024 single Los Angeles, featuring Budgie, Lol Tolhurst and Jacknife Lee, with LCD Soundsytem’s James Murphy on vocals.
The James Murphy collaboration seemed almost inevitable. James and Syd appear to share a lot of qualities, both musical and attitudinal. If Los Angeles is anything to go by, we can only hope they have cemented a bond and continue their working relationship long into the future.
Support the artist
Listen to tracks on bandcamp and follow the band on Instagram.