Another Country $$$$ — “TETHER”: A Soundtrack to the Disconnection of Our Times

Emerging from the underbelly of Manchester’s experimental electronic scene, Another Country $$$$ are fast becoming one of the city’s most uncompromising new forces. Signed to tastemaker label Spinny Nights (home to Grove, Nukuluk, Lynks, BUFFEE, and Robbie & Mona), the duo have already torn up stages from The Great Escape to Pitchfork London, with a visceral sound that fuses drum & bass, post-rock, and emotional overload into something feral yet transcendent.

Their new single “TETHER” is both euphoric and unsettling — a sonic freefall through chaos and catharsis. Opening with ethereal choral calm before erupting into breakbeat-driven mayhem, it captures the anxious energy of our times: disconnection, overload, and the desperate need to stay grounded. The track’s circular, hypnotic video — filmed in the dark woods of Manchester — adds another layer of intensity, turning emotional collapse into ritual. We caught up with Sam and Oli of Another Country $$$$ to talk about grief, chaos, liminal spaces, and the Manchester scene that shaped them.

1. “Tether” feels like a sonic depiction of disconnection — it moves from calm to chaos in a really physical way. What personal or collective experiences inspired that sense of losing control and drifting away from reality?

Sam: I think there’s a load different experiences that kind of influence TETHER — a lot of the music & imagery is kind of personal, specific experiences with grief & loss a lot of the time filtered through intertextual references, I guess it does kind of extend outward intro reflection’s on the world & the general passage of time and that feeling of becoming overwhelmed, I thinks it’s something that I experience in a lot of different ways and something that is reflective of a lot of our music, it’s always trying to feel overwhelming and intensive.

2. The production fuses breakbeats with choral and ambient textures — it’s both euphoric and unsettling. How did you approach balancing those contrasts in the studio?

Sam: So the record was self produced in our old practice room, it was a really primitive sort of set up with microphones attached to broken microphone stands with gaffer tape — I feel like I really wanted the drums to be really present and high up — especially during the crashy bits but have it feel natural — as if Oli is sat there next to you drumming! I think it’s the big intersection between drum and bass & post rock — I remember Oli showing me bands like 65daysofstatic which we used as a reference point for the drum production.

Oli: A lot of our influences shaped that balance too. We come from a background rooted in dance and electronic music but we’ve always been massive fans of genres like screamo and death metal so that contrast just comes natural.

3. The accompanying video amplifies that circular, hypnotic feeling — light, repetition, degradation. How did the concept come together visually, and what does that recurring “circle” motif represent to you?

Sam: I feel like the circle is meant to relate to the idea of feeling of being surrounded by something — an exterior force, idea or memory and perhaps being set apart and isolated from actual reality!

Oli: I’ve got a bit of an obsession with liminal spaces. The spotlight effect against a vast, empty backdrop in the video creates this weird tension, like something’s both open and claustrophobic at the same time.

4. You’ve emerged from Manchester’s experimental underground but already found yourself on major bills — Pitchfork London, support for SCALER, Fat Dog, Baths. How has that scene shaped your sound and your approach to performance?

Sam: So our old practice room that was ran by Do Your Best had a big influence on our sound — SILVERWINGKILLER, Chermansog, Adrian Steele, Mumbles, Mogan, Feed all practiced in the space — all coming up around the same time — playing shows together — all with a shared ethos and similarly experimental approach to electronic music and indie music. CRIMEWAVE & BUFFEE are other artists we work with and play together a lot who we met through the Manchester scene, I think early one when we first we met we all made very similar music and we’re keen to connect because at the time we kinda felt as though there weren’t many people who made that kind of music! I guess it has a massive influence because it creates an immediate sense of community — where we can create together, play together, feedback on each other’s work and just generally support one another.

5. “Tether” seems to mark the start of a bigger creative chapter with Spinny Nights. What can we expect from the full EP coming in January — and how does it expand on the ideas introduced in this single?

Sam: I guess we wanted to expand on the narrative of the EP, the whole thing is based around and influenced by a poem that I wrote which becomes like a key motif that the EP is centred around. It’s also kind of like a trip through of moments from our live set, we try and change is as much as we can filtering new ideas, works in progress and experiments so songs do come in and out over time — so we’re really excited to have those songs go out on record, almost like they’re being archived in a way.

“TETHER” is out now on Spinny Nights — listen here.