South London quintet Ain’t have kicked off their 2026 with the propulsive new single “Grazer,” a sub-three-minute blast of slurring guitar lines and hooky harmonies that doubles as a mission statement for their debut EP. Coming off a massive year that saw them land on the NME 100 and sell out their first London headline date, the band recorded the track with producer Ali Chant (Dry Cleaning, Yard Act), leaning into a “90s slacker” sound that pulls from shoegaze and atmospheric dream pop. The single serves as the final piece of their upcoming six-track EP, How They Faked The Moon Landing, which arrives on 12” vinyl via Fear Of Missing Out Records on May 22nd.
Of the single, vocalist Hanna Baker Darch states,
“I’ve always thought it cowardly when people assume popular culture is unprofound; the mere fact we are animals making art is inherently mystical. Grazer kind of vents this opinion, using hellraiser as an example. It’s been downplayed as another pulpy, ridiculous slasher franchise – and it is, but it’s also got these insane parallels to concepts in Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy: frank cotton is literally a body without organs, and he is also a desiring machine. It feels increasingly necessary to stress the importance of creativity – not just high-brow works – when artistic expression is increasingly under threat from AI.”
While the music feels effortlessly cool, vocalist Hanna Baker Darch infuses the track with heavy-hitting subtext, using the horror classic Hellraiser to bridge the gap between pop culture and high-brow philosophy. Defending the “mystical” nature of art-making in the age of AI, Darch draws parallels between the film’s visceral imagery and the theories of Deleuze and Guattari. Far from a victory lap for their early success, “Grazer” and the forthcoming EP act as a primer for an even busier year ahead, with the band already booked for a summer of festival appearances, including The Great Escape and 2000trees.
