Iona Zajac & The Itch (GM26 Preview)

Iona Zajac and Simon from The Itch share some of their most memorable Green Man experiences and discuss what they’re most excited to see at this years’ festival. Scotland’s Iona Zajac plays harp and sings with the Pogues, but she also finds time to make music as an artist in her own right, releasing her debut album, Bang, at the end of last year. She describes her sound as “dark indie folk with grumbles of pop, a dark gravelly tunnel with bright warm light at the end”: sadness cut through with humour, in the vein of Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Florence and the Machine, and The Last Dinner Party. Scientists still don’t really know what an itch is, but for alt-pop duo The Itch, aka Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy, it’s how they describe making music: a compulsion, something akin to addiction. The pair met as teenagers a decade ago in Luton and have been collaborating musically ever since, but it was only after playing at a Talking Heads tribute night in 2023 that they decided to form The Itch. On their imminent debut album It’s The Hope That Kills You they apply an electroclash sweat and basement throb to the alienation and pessimism of the modern world, and describe themselves as “somewhere between pain and pleasure”.