“It definitely feels like the most IDER yet,” we sat down with IDER to discuss their creative process, the evolution of their sound and upcoming album shame.

This time last year Lily Somerville and Megan Markwick, the two creative minds behind IDER, were holed up in the UK working on new music. Ahead of the release of lead single Cross Yourself off of their upcoming album shame, IDER took a moment to reflect on the past year and the essential processes that led them to this moment.

Somerville and Markwick began their musical relationship during university, songwriting and playing acoustic gigs under the name Lily & Meg. Despite the shutdown of the touring industry in 2020, they still consider performance one of the sustaining pillars in their creative process.

lt’s important for us to understand other people’s experiences

“The stuff that we talk about in our songs… I feel it’s important for us to share that with people and understand other people’s experiences. A massive part of feeling connected to [our] music is living it through other people,” Somerville says.

There’s a fine-tuned synchronicity to the way Somerville and Markwick interact on stage, weaving energy out of thin air and taking strength from the other’s presence. Their songs contain mesmerizing harmonies that provide a guiding heartbeat throughout their catalog. Here are two individuals, immensely talented in their own right, coming together to form the cohesive listening experience that is IDER. This utterly breathtaking dynamic extends into a visual space, powerfully showcased in their music video for Mirror, linked below.

For many artists, the energy put into songwriting and production is received back from the audiences to which they perform. This exchange is vital, IDER says, to their personal experience of producing music. They had only just completed their album tour when the world shut down in 2020, timing Somerville refers to as “unbelievable.” Thankfully, they had those experiences from which to draw energy and place it into the production of shame, their sophomore effort.

We always wanted to keep it quite insular

Their single Saturday, a song created during the first wave of the pandemic, is a hauntingly beautiful tune with its own equally haunting music video (directed by friend and longtime collaborator Lewis Knaggs). The simplicity of the video wasn’t actually the product of lockdown limitations but stems from IDER’s original creative vision.

“We would have worked with [Knaggs] and we would have wanted to create something haunting and claustrophobic anyway.” Their shared flat and working space doubled as the perfect set, with plenty of room to play. Regarding the creative process surrounding the video, Markwick adds, “As soon as you bring in a big team your thoughts can get diluted… we always wanted to keep it quite insular.”

The shift to a more internal music-making process is a fascinating development. “Our way of working has evolved in favor of this situation,” Somerville points out. 2019’s Emotional Education is an absolutely gorgeous debut album, playing into the duo’s strengths of vocal harmonies, pulsing beats and dreamy soundscapes. shame differs by playing into the strengths of a more self-sufficient version of IDER. “The biggest difference is that we’ve co-produced [shame]. It just feels and sounds—even more than our first record—like us. It has a really strong sense of IDER and what that sounds like. I think that’s probably quite natural, you grow into your own sound,” Markwick says. 

“We’ve really enjoyed that process and creatively we’ve felt very free in saying what we want to say, in things sounding how we want them to sound.”

Somerville and Markwick are unapologetic, blunt and confident. It is apparent in their presence on stage and off, and there’s a beautiful assurance to their shared experiences and working relationship. It comes to the surface through deeply personal lyrics, yet another key difference from their earlier days as Lily & Meg. “We’d often dodge the actual point… because maybe we weren’t as confident in what we want[ed] to say,” Markwick adds.

‘Cross Yourself’ is a reflection on how we search for purpose

“With [Emotional Education] we were quite obsessed with the ‘right’ way of doing things. It also came from a fear of ‘this is the first album we’ve ever made.’ This time around it definitely feels much more like: ‘fuck it, this is how we want it; this is how we want it to sound and it sounds good to us.’ It definitely feels like the most IDER yet.”

Finally, IDER 2.0 is upon us. We were treated to a stripped down performance of Cross Yourself, lead single off of shame, at this year’s virtual SXSW music festival. With additional production by Salka Valsdóttir (Daughters of Reykjavík, CYBER), the single’s strongest feature is the gorgeous juxtaposition of flowing harmonies alongside punchy lyrical and percussive elements. “Cross Yourself is a reflection on how we search for purpose,” IDER shares, “how we often attach meaning to things or like the idea of something external to believe in, in exchange for believing in ourselves.”

IDER are owning their art and taking responsibility for their message. shame will be their second album, but it will also be their first free from the industry-imposed limitations that can come from working with a major label. With any creative endeavor there is risk. It is this risk—along with IDER’s self-assuredness, vulnerability and openness—that has us grasping for more, unable to let go.