Formal Sppeedwear - Punch Card Formal Sppeedwear

Stoke-on-Trent’s most tuned-in and turned-out trio Formal Sppeedwear are set to release their debut album Punch Card, a record that may well be one of the year’s standout avant-garde pop statements.

Driven by a love of sonic collage and shaped through lateral thinking, Punch Card is a lesson in how opposing forces, when carefully manipulated, can create sparks, tension and an irresistible urge to dance. The band describe their approach simply: “Our aim is to undermine anything leaning too far one way or the other. We shoot for homogeneity — if it sounds good and its component parts can’t be pulled out, we’ve matched the job description.”

Like the typo embedded in their name, now proudly worn as a badge of honour, the album thrives on happy accidents and instinctive reactions. The punch-card cut-outs on the sleeve artwork act as a portal into Formal Sppeedwear’s strange and playful universe.

After signing to melodic in 2023, the trio’s sold-out 2024 self-titled debut EP — a self-produced 12-inch blending elastic basslines, leaping guitar motifs and sparse percussion — earned support from BBC 6 Music and secured shows with Fat Dog, Preoccupations, Warmduscher and Divorce. A dedicated following quickly formed, with curious listeners flooding their Instagram messages trying to decode the group’s idiosyncratic and off-kilter lyrics, many of which stem from Beck’s phonetically associative style of wordplay.

The band produced Punch Card themselves, with mastering handled by Paul D. Millar of Slug Bug. Obsessed with sonic variety, they even abandoned three tracks during the process — not because they did not fit, but because they fit too comfortably. Through endless boomerang voice notes and a near-telepathic connection forged through shared obsessions with Neu! and Yellow Magic Orchestra, they explain: “There’s definitely a subconscious level to what we do, but it’s always driven by what works sonically. The real challenge becomes how to recreate it live.”

Many of the album’s strongest moments emerged rapidly from improvised sessions in their Tremolo rehearsal space. Jagged and punchy track Indecent was largely captured live in a single take, while The Ballad of DCB — whose acronym may be familiar to avid Stoke bookworms — evolved from late-night tinkering and jangling guitar experiments. Live favourite Wait (Hatchet Gets a New Hide) functions as a collage of early Sppeedwear ideas and melodies, completed using a Tascam 488 cassette recorder.

Yet beneath the joyfully disorienting twists and sudden shifts lies a surprising emotional depth. Closing track Friedrich Backs Up Nothing shimmers with manipulated cello textures and strange atmospheres while reflecting lyrically on how future history may judge the present day.

Formal Sppeedwear may resemble pop music from a distance, but Punch Card ultimately emerges through collision, limitation and chance — much like the stamped-out geometry that inspired its artwork in the first place.