Mystery Jets explain how ‘seismic’ events sparked their return with ‘A Hole to See the Sky Through’

As Mystery Jets prepare to return with their new album A Hole to See the Sky Through, the Eel Pie Island legends have told Rolling Stone UK about the genesis of their seventh record and how two new members gave the band a fresh shot of life.

The band’s follow-up to 2020’s A Billion Heartbeats arrives on August 21 via Fiction Records and comes after they hinted at a new start last week with the release of new single ‘Black Sage’. Now, they’ve confirmed the arrival of their seventh album and revealed that it takes its name from Yoko Ono’s seminal 1961 artwork after the cultural icon gave her blessing.

‘I’d seen the postcard of A Hole to See the Sky Through in the British Museum and it really struck me because it was such a simple message, it was this piece of card with these simple instructions,” explained singer Blaine Harrison of the record, which was recorded with Leo Abrams (Frightened Rabbit, Wild Beasts).

“It just felt like a very powerful way to encourage you to change your perspective on the world by simply changing the frame you’re viewing life through and it felt in keeping with the times we’re living through,” he adds, speaking to RS UK in the appropriate confines of the Serpentine Gallery. “It was an aperture to change the way see you the world and brought in a sense of positivity, whereas I feel like phones do the opposite in a way. They present a very fake version and a curated version of the world.”

The album itself is one of the band’s most eclectic efforts yet, veeringly wildly between moments of all-out rock, as seen on the title track, baggier moments and even incredibly emotional tributes to lost friends. All of this was aided by the band’s founding member Henry Harrison, whose past life as an architect allowed the band to create mind maps which determined themes in the records and links between their previous efforts.

“It’s been a trilogy of records. Curve of the Earth was looking down from this cosmic perspective and the artwork made it look like a space rock record which looked at our lives from this cosmic perspective, whereas A Billion Heartbeats felt like us in the trenches and the perspective was from street level, looking at human conflict,” says Blaine. “Now we’ve got the third part, where you’re looking from the void back up at the place you started. The world has got so much worse and so you’re trying to find hope.”

But hope springs eternal. After the departure of guitarists William Rees and Jack Flanagan, the band now have the addition of twins Eddie and Ollie Taylor to bolster the Jets sound.

Both Harrison and drummer Kapil Trivedi admit that the pair were always at the forefront of their minds after auditioning for the band, but they also previously came into their orbit when things weren’t looking so rosy.

“This record started on the night that we first met the boys, because it was 20 years of XPosure on Radio X and we played this John Kennedy show, which was Will’s last show in the Jets. It was the night we met, we met the twins, and it was the night I met my now fiancée. It was this incredibly serendipitous and cosmic event in the life of Mystery Jets. I remember waking up that morning of the show and thinking fucking hell, this is the end of the road with Will.

“We played that show and he just wasn’t with us. But the boys came into our lives that night and they didn’t join for another three years, but it was this seismic cosmic event in our lives, and it was the beginning. That’s the place where this record began.”

Now, they’re a group reborn and ready for the start of their seventh album arriving in the world.

“I remember when we played The Maccabees’ farewell show when they first broke up in 2017 and that was like a wake for our youth,” candidly reflects Blaine.

“We went to an after party and stayed up till stupid o’clock partying with The Maccabees, and I eventually rolled home at about 6 in the morning. I remember being sat outside my property guardianship, smoking a cigarette and I I just started weeping. One of my housemates came out and I couldn’t really put it into words, but it just felt like things were getting really hard out there for guitar bands. But now, I think the whole situation has changed. Tame Impala are playing The O2, Geese are this huge phenomena and there’s all these encouraging signs that guitar music might just be back.”