Spotlight On... Starsky-Rae

Formerly releasing music as Pelican Tusk, Sam Bancroft hit the reset button releasing Who Drank My Cans? as Starsky-Rae in late 2022. A visceral blur of rage around the theft of some nice cans he was saving for a special occasion: ‘Whoever drank my cans, I’m fucking ragin’, he fumed over a bubbling breakbeat instrumental, ‘It’s the fucking principle, at least leave me one’. Jump forward to this week and the Glasgow experimental producer and singer-songwriter has released his latest album, Taste the Bruise. Far less reactionary and on the nose than that first single, its 11 tracks are rich and textured, with gorgeous production that genre-warps together facets of soul, indie, dreampop, hyperpop, experimental, jazz, R’n’B and more, creating a body of work that feels cohesive and considered.

Following the album’s release earlier this week, we’re delighted to shine a spotlight on Starsky-Rae to talk inspirations, collaborations, and future plans – plus, we try to find out who drank his cans all those years ago. Sorry for opening up any old wounds.

Before you started releasing music as Starsky-Rae, you were part of a band called Pelican Tusk. What happened to Pelican Tusk?
Pelican Tusk was originally the name for my bedroom recordings when I first started making tunes. I really wanted to be in a band and it was so minted to play with class people who were into the recordings I had done. By the end, though, I think it became a bit confusing for me. I found myself writing tunes that would be fun to play live with the band, and I think once the pandemic happened and all the venues shut, that all felt a bit pointless, and being a band leader when you’ve no clue where to go with the band was a bit fried. I had a strong urge to write and record instead. But yeah, was some heavy good times.

Where does the name Starsky-Rae come from?
My dad was really into the 80s cop show Starsky & Hutch when he was wee so wanted to call his child that, but my mum pushed it up to the middle name region, so aye Starsky-Rae is like my legal middle name haha.

On your album, Taste the Bruise, you explore quite a lot of different styles and ideas across its 11 tracks. I’d love to know about some of the artists that have helped inform your sound over the years and that have specifically inspired this record?
There was a period right before I started making the album (summer/autumn 2023) where I was exclusively listening to Aphex Twin's ...I Care Because You Do. The drum sounds and the drum mania on that album for sure explain a lot of the drum programming on Taste The Bruise. Ugh, it's so good.

Learning the tune Águas De Março by Elis Regina and Tom Jobim unlocked loads of song ideas around that time. I hadn’t studied really any jazz until then and when I discovered the progression of that tune is basically the root note of each chord just moving down chromatically, with the most amazing chords above them, it basically blew my mind and I found just playing a chord on piano and moving just the lowest note gave me a lot of song ideas.

I was really really into Gemini Rights by Steve Lacy and Caroline Polachek's Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, which is why I think there’s a lot of pop elements in the album, I was sort of idolising Caroline for a few months and would watch her interviews a lot and was so obsessed with how she so articulately frames pop music as the most avant-garde shit ever.

How long did Taste the Bruise take you to write, record and produce and what was the process like? Were any other musicians involved in its creation?
I remember being insanely focused and full throttle working on it all the time, it was such a sustained period of mania and I loved every second of it. Normally on projects I’ll ebb and flow between confidence/self-loathing/hatred and have to take breaks to come back to it, but I had this ridiculous level of sustained confidence and joy while making it; when I listen to the album now my biggest experience is just remarking, somewhat baffled at how confident I sound.

My uncle Phil Bancroft features a lot on the album, I had gotten most of the music done and went round to Phil’s for an evening and he just solo’d over the tracks on basically the first time hearing. Amy Geddes plays violin on [title track] Taste the Bruise. Gina Rae, my cool mum, did a lot of backing vocals, as well as Lily Bell Penny and Rachel McLellan. The vocal sample on Think About You is from a Cassandra Quean track. Ohhhh and George Palmer does the hilarious genius vocal performance on Oh Yeah.

What are some of the themes found across the album? And what’s the meaning behind the album’s title? 
Love, confusion, contradiction, unrequited love, overthinking, paranoia about self-obsessed pop. The title [which shares its name with one of the tracks], to me, it’s just a memory being a physical thing on your body and trying to open scars and bruises to access something. But ya know it’s open to interpretation… I nearly changed the title after my dad was ripping me saying, “it’s a bit Smell the Glove from Spinal Tap", haha.

By this point in time, we've sadly missed your album launch show – do you have any further plans for live outings this year/next?
My main focus is the next recording, which is an acoustic EP called Part of the Charm, which is really jazzy and sad. I’d hate to not gig the album as much as possible because it sounds so good the way the band play it – shout out to Vili Petković, Lily and Josh McBride. For the last project, Why Am I So Green?, the band learned the whole album and we played one gig then I went to record this album; it was bittersweet 'cause I loved playing those songs with those guys, Tim Ciubotaru too.

And finally, this is a bit of a throwback to an earlier single, but we have to know, did you ever find out who drank your cans?
Honestly, Tallah, I’m still really upset about the whole thing, so yeah, thank you soo much for bringing up this past trauma.

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Taste the Bruise is out now, available via Bandcamp and in all the usual places online

Follow Starsky-Rae on Instagram @starskyrae