TTSSFU at The Attic

TTSSFU – Wigan-born, Manchester-based Tasmin Nicole Stephens – makes lofi, grungy shoegaze that takes the genre in an intriguingly dark direction.

As a kid, modern pop stars never really did it for Stephens. Instead she became bewitched by Blondie and Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. By the time she started writing and recording her first songs at 14, she already knew there was nothing else that she was going to do.

If those mythic idols set the bar for intent and aura, more recent figures in the same lineage underpinned the method. “I was really into Alex G, SOKO, John Maus and stuff like that. I thought, well if Alex G can record on Garageband then I’ll do that.”

She did, and it worked. Producing, mixing and mastering her own music using the rudimentary software, she self-released a string of singles and EPs, before dropping her 2024’s EP, Me, Jed and Andy via Fear of Missing Out Records. Inspired by the complicated romance between Jed Johnson and Andy Warhol, its brooding, reverb-soaked ruminations on heartbreak, dissatisfaction, spite and hedonism combine the eeriness of The Cure with the fast BPMs of early noughties indie.

Soon enough she went from a regular fixture in Manchester’s indie scene to one of its fastest rising stars. The last year or so’s seen Stephens sign to Partisan, play sold out headlines across the UK, support Kim Deal, English Teacher, Soccer Mommy and Mannequin Pussy, plus pack out festival slots from Green Man to the Great Escape.

Now she’s back with another EP: Blown. The propulsive first single ‘Call U Back’ – co-produced by Chris Ryan (Just Mustard, Cardinals, New Dad) – is probably her best track to date. It starts with a siren-call of feedback before slipping into a stalking, propulsive groove that never relents, carrying anxious memories of unrequited feelings. It’s built around a simple, almost whispered mantra (“I’ll call u back / Can I stay at home with you?”), which could have easily been sung over a sunny indie pop track. But pummelling low-end guitars and bass cast a darkness over it that’s far more interesting.

Things get heavier on ‘Sick’, whose closing noisy guitar freak-out is deeply satisfying, and lighter on ‘Forever’, which actually is a sunny indie pop track, if filtered through TTSSFU’s signature shoegaze lens.

Live, her sets brim with a raucous, unpredictable, sultry energy. “I try to act a bit scary on stage,” Stephens says of her frontwoman persona. “I’d always really looked up to Alice Glass and Sky Ferreira, cos she doesn’t move much but she’s very demanding, and also recently Ethel Cain. I like people who create a force around them.”

See that force up close and personal at the 200-capacity Attic in Leeds.