Piroshka

Featuring members of Lush, Elastica, Moose, and Modern English, Piroshka builds on the Britpop, shoegaze, and post-punk legacies of its lineup by adopting fresh sounds and viewpoints instead of looking back. The band began a new chapter for these veteran artists with 2019's spiky, politically minded debut Brickbat.

Piroshka began in late 2016, when Lush's reunion tour came to a close. Drummer Justin Welch, formerly of Elastica, approached guitarist/vocalist Miki Berenyi about a new music project with her and Modern English bassist Mick Conroy, who had joined the group for the tour's final show in Manchester. However, the band's roots go deeper than that: Welch and Berenyi are longtime friends from their former bands' '90s heydays; Berenyi and Moose vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist KJ McKillop are partners; and Conroy played in a latter-day version of McKillop's band. The chemistry that Welch, Berenyi, and Conroy felt during the rehearsals for the Manchester show convinced them to keep making music, and they began exchanging demos that blended shoegaze, post-punk, and guitar pop in ways that didn't sound exactly like anything they'd done before. With the addition of McKillop's keyboards, guitar, and songwriting, Piroshka's sound and lineup was complete. The band soon signed to former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde's label Bella Union. Their debut album, Brickbat, which featured string arrangements by Fiona Brice and brass courtesy of Terry Edwards, appeared in February 2019.