ATKRTV are split between London and Harrogate now, and they keep coming back to York. The post-hardcore/noise rock trio wrote all four songs on debut EP “Pilot” there, and their annual DIY all-dayer Orbfest still runs at the Fulford Arms. York has also lost rooms that once gave local bands and touring acts more places to play.
Orbfest started in Max Taylor’s living room in 2023 because ATKRTV simply wanted more gigs.
“Honestly we were just starting out as a band and wanting to play more gigs so we thought why not do it all ourselves?” Max said. He had already played a couple of house and frat shows in the States, so doing something at home seemed possible. One of his housemates was a singer-songwriter, ATKRTV had their own “weirdo noise rock stuff”, and they wanted a day where both could fit.
That first edition was billed broadly as “alternative/noise/folk”. There was already plenty of indie and rock around York and the university, so they wanted room for stranger guitar bands and quieter artists too. The same looseness still drives the bill.
“Honestly, it is very vibes based.”
Some bands come from shows ATKRTV have played elsewhere. They’ll get talking on the night and ask whether someone fancies coming to York. Others turn up through local venue listings, social media and whatever is happening around town.
The aim is to put heavier and noise-oriented bands next to calmer sets, partly so nobody spends seven hours having their eardrums flattened and partly so people end up hearing something outside their normal corner of DIY music.
Josh Venters suggested moving the second Orbfest into the Fulford Arms. It meant more bands, more time to promote the day and less time dragging sound equipment around York. The 2024 edition went well enough that both ATKRTV and the venue wanted to make it annual.
The city around it has got harder for small shows.
The Fulford Arms is the venue ATKRTV have been closest to. Max remembers the Micklegate Social basement as the site of their first show, and they have also played The Crescent, which he describes as acting like a sister venue to the Brude in Leeds. Fibbers and the much smaller Victoria Vaults have both closed during the band’s time in York. Max says The Crescent is now threatened by plans for Airbnbs above the loudest part of the venue.
Fewer rooms means fewer free dates for York bands and fewer reasons for touring bands to put the city on a run. Grogg Promotions have provided one useful addition by bringing heavier shows into Fulford WMC, which is starting to establish itself as another place for local music.
Max and Josh have since moved south, living on different sides of London, while Felix is in Harrogate. ATKRTV briefly considered moving Orbfest as well. They left it in York, where the festival was already becoming an excuse to see old friends, keep up with local bands and bring touring acts back through a city that used to appear more regularly on tour routes.
“I guess we now sort of feel half in / half out of the York scene,” Max said. “We still keep in touch with a lot of the bands, promoters and the shows going on up there. People sometimes still refer to us as a ‘York band’ which is pretty fun, and in a weird way, the Fulford Arms still feels like a home, even though we’re only playing there around 3-4 times a year.”
“Pilot” came out on September 18 and catches ATKRTV before that geographical mess became normal. Its four songs were written during the York period, with different bits of the band’s early history attached to each one.
“Dial A Vow” came first. Max brought some riffs to Felix’s kitchen before Josh had joined.
They did not have a singer yet because, as Max puts it, he was too shy, and there was no bass either. Max and Felix would jam the song for ages in a university practice room, shouting stupid stuff over it while the whole thing was still pretty thin at the bottom end. “Panikku” came from the same early stretch, and its demo was one of the things they sent Josh when he joined.
“Attacker TV” was another early track and one of the slower songs in the set. Max links it to ATKRTV’s first show at the Fulford Arms, where they played with Teleost, a stoner/doom duo originally from York.
“Probably one for the head banger types to enjoy.”
The Attacker TV name had another thread around it in 2023, tied to ideas about media consumption. Transmission, digital imagery and the panopticon appeared around the band’s later presentation too. “Pilot” itself comes with far more specific memories attached to the songs: rooms, rehearsals and early shows.
“JBIII” is the point where the full trio properly enter the picture. They wrote it after their first run of gigs in summer 2023, and most of the work happened in Max’s living room. By then, that room had already hosted the first Orbfest.
The noisy outro became a handy place to mess around live. At Micklegate Social, Josh jumped into a crowd that was standing almost completely still. At Orbfest, their friend Albert came up to play saxophone.
“Probably the opening track, JBIII,” Max said when asked which “Pilot” song he now connects most closely with York. “We wrote it as we were increasing in confidence as a band and starting to gig more, and some of our favourite memories as a band have been when playing that track. That’s one of the reasons why we made it the opener for the release, as it feels like an apt summary of our sound for that time we were in York.”
There are a few clues in that earlier version of ATKRTV. In a 2023 SoundSphere interview, Max and Felix talked about their experience playing in jazz bands, and Max used “angularity” and “rhythmic bite” when talking about what he was looking for in the band. He now remembers putting more attention into interesting chord progressions during the York period.
The structures were often fairly recognisable too: “verse, chorus, quiet middle section, loud outro haha.” The newer stuff is being written with more room around that basic pattern.
“Pilot” was recorded by Danny Blackburn at Nave Studios. Joshua Venters mixed and mastered it and also made the artwork.
Writing now happens wherever the three of them can get together. They send stems back and forth for demos, try new tracks during soundchecks and sometimes test ideas during shows. New River Studios has become one of their regular London rehearsal spots whenever Felix can get down from Harrogate. Max also mentions the pizza and a Duchesse, which is probably a better account of why bands become attached to rehearsal rooms than anything grander.
Josh has been turning his shed into a small studio since moving back to London. Apart from the drums, ATKRTV recorded the singles “Control” and “Orbstasis” there, with Josh also handling the mixing and mastering.
The move has put them on emo, post-punk and psych bills around London and taken them further through Sheffield, Brighton, Glasgow and Leicester. It has also made the band harder to pin to one place.
“The downside is we often feel quite nomadic, not quite fully in London nor fully in York,” Max said. “I guess it’s quite hard to settle into a city when your starting roots were not there, but we’re still super grateful for all the opportunities given to us so far, especially now we are able to go on our first ever tour.”
Orbfest gives them one fixed date and one familiar place to return to.
Getting the mix between York bands and visitors right can be tricky, and ATKRTV want the festival to keep connecting local gig-goers with bands from the wider British DIY circuit. They also want a broader range of people involved and are open about the fact that this is something they can keep improving.
For 2027, the basics are staying pretty simple. They want artists and people in the crowd talking to each other, with the beer garden and green room conversations treated as part of a good day rather than dead time between sets. Different kinds of music should remain on the same bill so somebody coming for one band can stumble across something they would usually ignore.
There are practical rules too. Bands should be paid properly and fed. They should be able to sell merch. Somebody should be around to help carry gear.
ATKRTV would also like to see more people putting money and effort into DIY rooms around York, and more people trying their own shows or festivals. Fulford WMC and Grogg Promotions are already giving them one example of a new room taking shape.
“We were just a bunch of weirdo students when we started Orbfest so hopefully it can help lower the barriers to entry for people to get involved.”
Their first UK tour is already under way. The remaining dates are October 9 at The Pig in Hastings with Mystic Shed and Halfneck, October 22 at Dash the Henge in Camberwell, and October 30 at the Fulford Arms with Damage Control and Fat Spatula.
The last one takes them back to York.
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