Formed in 2019, Lawne is the result of a meeting of minds between old friends and self confessed music nerds Joe Nicklin and Joe Martin. Their sound draws upon myriad influences with dub, electronics, hip hop, psych, jazz, post-punk and Afrobeat all somehow ingrained within the mix.
Mamasong, the third single to be taken from the pair’s debut LP, has a more relentless, uptempo Afrobeat flavoured groove than their previous outings, and after some playing around with different versions of the tune, soon became a firm favourite for both band members, as Joe Nicklin explains:
“There are a few versions of this tune knocking about and even though it took a while for us to land on a final version, I’m really glad we persisted - it’s probably my favourite song on the album. An early version had a combination of a mambo and a songo as the groove (hence the nameMamasong) and Joe (Martin) used this as a framework to write from. Once his parts were done, he started to experiment with different feels. Then after a fair amount of back and forth, everything seemed to click when we landed on something more straight-ahead and funky. We fell into this way of writing completely by accident but it was cool - let a groove inspire stuff and then start afresh stylistically. It sort of felt like we were remixing our own song.”
Joe Martin explains more, “It’s one of my favourite tracks and definitely my favourite to play live, I think that has a lot to do with the higher tempo and the little time signature changes in the breakdown. It’s also the first tune we sang on; it feels the most musical.
Some of the tracks on the album came together really quickly whereas this one took the longest and went through quite a few rewrites before we arrived at something that felt good. While that process can be frustrating at times, it definitely makes it all the most satisfying when everything finally comes together.”
Comparing Lawne’s sound to that of Mildlife, Nu Genea, Harvey Sutherland and Khruangbin wouldn’t be far off the mark, but such contemporaries form only part of the duo’s sonic soundscape as Fela Kuti, The Beach Boys and Herbie Hancock also weigh heavy on their repertoire, as Joe Nicklin explains:
“I had been working mainly as a live session drummer for a few years and missed being able to get my teeth into a project of my own, collaborating and building something that reflects my influences from the ground up. I knew Joe (Martin) a bit from home in North Oxfordshire but we reconnected after both moving to London and decided to start sending ideas back and forth shortly after. Originally we set out to make dance music with live instrumentation, but a shared love of psychedelic, jazz-funk and hip hop eventually saw our music also reflect these styles.”
Joe Martin goes on, “I’d been engaged on a solo electronic project for a few years but soon began to miss working collaboratively and writing music with instruments rather than creating solely on a laptop. I knew Joe from home and when he asked if I wanted to get together to make some music, it seemed like the perfect time. We’ve spent the last couple of years exploring different sounds and trying our best to work outside of our comfort zone; listening to a wider range of material as well as incorporating that into our own music.”
Is it Balearic? Quite possibly.

Lawne will be performing live at 91 Living Room (London) on 26th July and We Are Love festival (Sussex) on 28th July. Their debut album will be released in November 2024 on Wah Wah 45s.