The musical approach of experimental 3 piece band Domestic Partners is one of meticulously calculated chaos. Virtuosically dissonant piano and intense vocals are provided by Ethan Carson, while Josh Stark expresses thunderous prog metal energy on drums. Tim Wheeler on synth and saxophone adds that final layer of sonic texture that glues the whole positively surreal experience together. The group takes inspiration from London’s windmill scene of the 2020s (citing black midi as an influence especially), and combines post-punk and noise elements with avant-garde flavours of jazz, classical and metal. I went down to their recent gig at the Lost Art Skate Shop in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, after being thoroughly impressed with their debut single ‘Turbine Failure Blues’, released in January of this year.
On their Spotify profile, the group describe themselves as ‘transcendent piano death noise’, and that’s exactly what I was met with. Carson’s face contorts as he delivers his vocals in a constantly shifting assortment of croons, yells and spoken words. His fingers attack the keyboard with similar intensity, bringing a distinctly haunting chromaticism. The drums complement the piano with complex odd time rhythms while retaining a clear sense of groove, and the synth/saxophone rounds off the vivid musical picture, especially in the noise sections. Their song ‘All I See Are Dead Fish’ really stood out to me – the constant twists and turns showcase the Partners’ full capabilities, I’ve been listening to it non-stop on their SoundCloud page. My favourite thing about their music is that it is literally impossible to predict which direction it will go.
In January, the band played their first headline gig at the recently reopened Quarry, a haven for up-and-coming alternative acts, which has hosted the likes of Westside Cowboy and Jane Weaver. With an extensive list of 2026 dates lined up in Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and London, Domestic Partners are carving a unique lane for themselves on the experimental scene as a furiously technical outfit. This is a band straddling the line between beauty and disarray, technical wizardry against apocalyptic walls of sound, transcendent piano with death noise. Go and see them.
I caught up with the band after their show at Lost Art to chat about what informs their musical pursuits. Here’s my interview:
Your first headline gig was at the Quarry on the anniversary of your first gig. What did that mean to you guys as a band?
Ethan: It was a couple of days before. We tried to get it on the 17th, unfortunately it had to be moved.
Tim: The single came out a year after our 1st gig. I don’t know, it just kind of felt like a flex that we could do that, to be honest.
The Quarry’s an established venue, Westside Cowboy is playing there…
Ethan: I’m already satisfied with our career, haha.
Tim: They’ve been doing great stuff for ages and we’re good friends with some of the people that run it. It’s like a second home to us I think, we just love Quarry so much.
Ethan: It’s also literally 30 seconds from my house, on the same block, so it feels extra like a second home.
Tim: We went to see it when they were building it.
Did you play at the old one as well?
Tim: Yeah a few times, I think our second gig was at the old Quarry, and they really liked us, that’s helped us out so much. I think a lot of the opportunities we’ve got now came from gigs at the original Quarry. So yeah, big up the Quarry.
Ethan: Yeah, if you’re reading this, you’re half the reason we have a career, thank you!
You’ve played in London as well as Liverpool quite a bit. Do you see differences between the two?
Ethan: I think random people who don’t know us tend to like us a lot more in London. I think that’s kind of where our audience lies and we’re going to try to give it to them more this year. Josh: It feels like more people are up for it in London. People will just go out to a gig on a random day of the week. You don’t have to let people know, they’ll just be like, oh, my mate texted me and I came down.
Tim: I think maybe it’s just because it’s just a bigger city there’s more people.
Josh: Easier to get around as well.
Tim: Yeah, and that is where the scene comes from that we draw a lot of inspiration from.
The Brixton Windmill scene right?
Tim: Yeah we played there, I didn’t think I’d maybe ever do that, to be honest.
How did that scene influence you?
Ethan: Black Midi are definitely a big influence, with doing techy shit, but like not tech for the sake of tech, you know?
I feel like in your lyrics as well, and your vocal delivery…
Ethan: Hell yeah. My biggest vocal inspiration is probably Adam Demirjian from the band Brave Little Abacus, I really look up to them. Unfortunately Alexis Marshall, but I don’t like saying that. And Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu for sure.
You’ve got songs like All I See Are Dead Fish which is about a schizophrenic sushi chef, and Turbine Failure Blues about someone’s thoughts and regrets during a plane crash. Why do you like writing about these concepts and ideas?
Ethan: A lot of it is just whatever I find to be the most interesting. Sometimes I’ll write songs that are completely serious and like actually how I feel, but I never feel happy with them or feel like they belong in the Domestic Partners catalogue. So I’ll take little bits of them as ingredients to a real Partners song. I don’t know, I just want to keep it interesting, I never want people waiting for the next song.
I feel like I could see All I See Are Dead Fish as a horror film.
Josh: Haha yeah, we could do a music video.
You guys are all technical wizards on your instruments, where does that side of your writing come from?
Ethan: I just want to keep it interesting. I think to portray the kinds of emotions you’ve got to portray for these songs, it’s got to be pretty uncomfortable to listen to and hard to follow. So yeah, it just adds to it.
Josh: Ethan writes some techy piano shit and then we add our expertise to it, and it always ends up working quite well and quite quickly.
Tim: Yeah, it’s always a bit of a dread when Ethan says I’ve written some song that’s 8 minutes long and it’s got all these crazy time signatures. Well, to be fair, I say that, but I just kind of sit on top and go – makes a screeching noise – Josh is the one that actually does the hard work.
Josh: Yeah. And I grew up playing prog metal stuff, it’s my kind of background, so it’s easy to dip into that, which is cool.
Ethan: But he can also play in a perfect 4/4 rock groove, that’s why he’s the goat.
Can you talk about your piano style? How do jazz and classical cross over?
Ethan: Yeah, like besides partners, I really just don’t have the patience to learn classical pieces and perform them or anything, so I play a lot of jazz. But I think for Partners, the influence is more classical than jazz. You know, there’s like zero improv, it’s often stuff I could not come up with on the spot.
Who are your main drumming influences?
Josh: In this band Morgan Simpson from Black Midi is probably the number one. Mike Portnoy from Dream Theatre influences my odd time shit, that’s some pretty important stuff to my drumming. Those two are the main ones for this band, for the techy sort of shred drumming. And all the jazz fusion guys, like Larnell Lewis from Snarky Puppy.
On stage are you trying to emulate what you’ve done in the studio, or is it more based on how you’re feeling on the night?
Ethan: The opposite, yeah. I think we’re much more used to being a live band than a studio band.
Tim: In the studio sessions so far we’ve done everything to a grid, and programming that has been… tough. And I think there’ll be a few more challenges on the next ones we’re about to record.
How did you meet?
Josh: Uni. We were in bands together, and then Ethan was like, “I’m gonna do my own band, do you want to be the drummer?”
Tim: Yeah so Ethan saw a band that I was in, like a kind of a gothy, slightly more traditional post-punk band that was so good that doesn’t exist anymore, unfortunately. I was playing saxophone and synth in that, and me and Ethan got talking afterwards. He said, “Do you want to be my band?”, I was like, “yeah!”, and I thought he was referring to a different band he was already in. But no, it was this band, and then a few months later he sent me these files and I was like, “wow, what the fuck?” and then we got rehearsing.
How do you think the band’s progressed since you formed?
Ethan: I don’t think any of our newer songs could ever have existed back then. We’re a very different band.
Josh: Yeah, it’s way different.
What’s your writing process?
Ethan: Sometimes we jam things out and it turns into a part of a song, but a lot of it I score out and give to them and they loosely follow it, but make it their own.
Ethan and Tim, you’re also in Tanzplatz. Have you ever had an idea for one band and you jammed it out and thought oh, this might be a Domestic Partners thing instead?
Tim: Other than writing parts, I’ve never brought a song to the Domestic Partners. I think because unlike Ethan, I’m really not that prolific in songwriting. If I do, like, it’s probably going to go to Tanzplatz. Yeah, they’re just quite different styles, I think.
Ethan: Yeah, we also have very big songwriting personalities I guess, and it’s hard to co-write this kind of shit. It’s nice to have our own outlets.
Tim: I think collaboration is a big, big part of it, but the core idea for the song usually just comes from Ethan.
Ethan because you play guitar as well, have you ever played a part on guitar and thought how it would sound on piano?
Ethan: Yeah! Actually in the future, we might do a thing where we cover a Tanzplatz song with Partners and vice versa.
Tim: We have the TanzPartners gigs where we have both our bands. We were thinking about how we could make that more of a mergy type thing.
Who is an artist in Liverpool you think people should pay attention to?
Ethan: Alice Low for sure, 100%. Oh my god, I’ve never seen a show like that. I think the only show I’ve cried more at was Xiu Xiu. Oh, fuck, I don’t even like, you gotta just…
Tim: Yeah, like as a live performance, it’s just… crazy. We’re sort of both stumbling over words, you just have to see it.
Ethan: You’re not safe in that show, she will come into the audience and fucking grab you dude. It’s her room.
What can people expect next?
Tim: Well, we’re off to London in like 3 weeks to record two more songs and yeah, it’s gonna be an EP.
Ethan: Brace yourselves.
