APRIL'S FISH

april's fish is a Nancy-based indie trio made up of Pheaktra Phat, Mike Junker and Léo Deubel. Their sound moves between shoegaze, post-rock, trip-hop and dream pop, combining layered production with a rawer, live energy. Their debut EP lizy's room, out now via BMM Records, follows Lizy, a teenage girl navigating a world of war, patriarchy, homophobia and other forms of violence. Through distorted textures and catchy melodies, the band turns heavy subjects into something immersive and unsettling. We spoke with the band about the story of Lizy and the subjects woven into her world, creating a distinct sonic identity, taking the EP somewhere louder and more intense live, and what comes next for them.

The B-Side Hour: lizy's room is your first EP, and it's also the opportunity for listeners to discover april's fish and enter your universe. What did you want this first release to reveal about the band?

april's fish: We wanted to show the different sides of april's fish and everything we like to explore musically. There's a mix between the rawness of playing live and the more detailed, produced side of the studio. The EP is quite varied, with tracks like "dirtywhitedress", which is more of a jungle track, alongside slower, downtempo, pop and rock songs.

But we also wanted to bring all of these different influences back to one common point, which is our friendship. A lot of the EP comes from the moments we've spent together, the things we've shared, and simply the pleasure of making music together. So even though the songs can sound very different from one another, there's this shared experience that connects them all.

The B-Side Hour: lizy's room is the story of Lizy, a teenage girl in the '90s, and the title track, which also served as the first single, introduces her in a state of anxiety and disorientation. What made Lizy the right character to build the EP around, and how did you come up with her story?

april's fish: Lizy felt like the right character because she doesn't necessarily belong to a specific time period. That gave us the freedom to use her story to approach very different subjects, from conflicts such as the Palestinian genocide to homophobia, racism, capitalism and other things that are part of the world around us.

Her story really started with the song "lizy's room", which became the starting point and the main thread for the EP. It was actually the very first song the three of us wrote together, so it naturally became the foundation for the whole project.

From the beginning, we wanted to create this kind of dirty but funny atmosphere around her. Something that could feel uncomfortable or unsettling, but also playful and a little absurd. We developed the rest of the EP from that first feeling and from Lizy's world.

The B-Side Hour: The EP touches on subjects such as animal cruelty, war, patriarchy, abuse and homophobia. What draws you to approaching such heavy subjects through music, and how do you find the right tone to address them without losing the more playful and catchy side of april's fish?

april's fish: These are subjects that are important to all three of us, and music is a way for us to raise awareness and make people think about them. In a way, it's the only real weapon we have when it comes to these issues, so we try to use it as best we can.

At the same time, we don't always want to be direct or overly serious about these subjects. There's a lot of irony and indirectness in the way we write. That's especially part of how Mike approaches lyrics. For example, "fishbones" deals with a pretty dark subject, but instead of simply dramatizing things that we can't necessarily change, we try to approach them with irony and a certain absurdity.

I think that balance is important to us. We can talk about serious things while still making music that is fun, catchy and sometimes even a bit stupid.

The B-Side Hour: You bring together shoegaze, post-rock, trip-hop and noise, with a lot of electronic textures and layers. How did you find your way through all these influences to develop a sound that feels distinctly like april's fish?

april's fish: The three of us listen to very different kinds of music, and we've always tried not to fit ourselves into one specific box. We still have a lot of work to do to find our own sound and develop a sonic identity that really feels unique to us.

Our goal is for people to hear a song and think, "This sounds like april's fish," rather than immediately associating it with one particular genre. Of course, we have nothing but respect for bands who choose to work within a specific genre or scene. For us, though, we like the idea of being able to move between different styles and still have that common thread that makes it sound like us.

The B-Side Hour: Your lyrics are particularly visual, and the production feels very immersive and psychedelic. What role does atmosphere play in the way you build a track, and how do you use production to shape the emotions and messages behind your lyrics?

april's fish: We don't try to overthink everything when we write. A lot of the time, it's in the moment that we decide what kind of theme or atmosphere fits a particular song. We try to work with people who share similar political, ecological and human values to ours, so that the final result feels as natural as possible and stays close to who we are.

The production is also a huge part of the composition itself. For example, we don't really think of the guitar as something that should first exist as a clean melody and then have effects added afterwards. The effects are there from the very beginning and are at the heart of the way we compose. Without them, the songs would sound completely different.

The B-Side Hour: With such an immersive atmosphere, how do you envision these songs translating to a live setting, and what do you want to preserve or change when you take them onstage?

april's fish: We try to create a real break between the studio version, which people can listen to on streaming platforms, and the live experience. On stage, we want to get much more directly into the audience's space and make things dirtier, noisier and more intense.

For us, the live experience should be different from the studio experience. We don't want to simply reproduce the songs exactly as they sound on the record. We actually like the idea that someone who has already listened to april's fish can come to a show and feel like they're discovering something new. It's almost like reopening the songs and finding another version of them through the live performance.

The B-Side Hour: There is something deliberately elusive in the way your lyrics communicate meaning. How do you decide what needs to be said explicitly and what can remain ambiguous, leaving space for the listener to construct their own interpretation?

april's fish: We deliberately leave a lot of room for interpretation so the listener can understand the songs in their own way and create their own story around them, without putting up a wall that forces them towards one specific interpretation.

At the same time, some lines are much more direct and explicit. Those are usually the parts that feel the most important to us. The moments where we really want to express what we believe in and make clear what we are fighting for. So it's about finding a balance between saying what we need to say and leaving enough space for the listener to make the song their own.

The B-Side Hour: That approach is particularly striking in "All Men," which repeats the lines "All men, not all men, and I have no words." What were you looking to express by stripping the song down to this repetition when approaching such a heavy subject?

april's fish: We really wanted the phrase "all men" to speak to all the people who respond with "not all men", when the reality is that, again and again, the people committing these acts are men. It's not about saying that every single man is an aggressor, but about refusing to let "not all men" become a way of avoiding the wider issue.

That's why we wanted to reduce the song to this repetition. "All men, not all men, and I have no words" is almost a loop. The same argument coming back again and again, until there are simply no words left. We wanted the repetition itself to become part of what the song is saying.

The B-Side Hour: You have a distinctive visual world through your music videos, the imagery around the EP and even your merch collaboration with DDP. How do you approach building the visual identity of april's fish, and what do you want that world to add to the music itself?

april's fish: We want to make music that feels right to us, but also create visuals that tell stories and feel like an extension of the songs. For us, the visual identity shouldn't just be decoration around the music, it should have its own meaning and be connected to the atmosphere and ideas behind the songs.

We like working with people who really understand the atmosphere of the band and can bring their own perspective to it. For the music videos, we've worked with people like Dennis Ebert and Sebastien Sollazzo, who have helped us develop that visual world.

For the artwork, Elise Deubel has created the covers for our singles and the EP. We really like the idea of working with people who understand what april's fish is about and can translate it into something visual without simply illustrating the music literally.

The B-Side Hour: The EP ends with "Kate" on the line "Beginning of my recovering life," turning what could have been a conclusion into the possibility of something new. In that sense, what did making lizy's room open up for april's fish, and what possibilities does that ending leave you wanting to explore next?

april's fish: Making lizy's room really feels like the beginning of something new for us. Lizy's story will continue in our next EP, where she will meet Daisy. Their encounter will gradually shift the focus of the story from Lizy to Daisy, opening up a new chapter in the universe we're creating. We're currently working on this second EP, and we're really excited to show you what comes next and let you hear it.

We're also preparing a double single that is completely separate from this storyline. It will be something very different for us, acting as a parenthesis between these two chapters.

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