Nightbus, the Manchester‑based duo of Olive Rees and Jake Cottier, have emerged as one of the UK’s most compelling new acts with their debut album, Passenger. Describing themselves as “travellers in our own bodies,” the pair explore alter-egos that carry secrets, fantasies, shame, and fear — a concept that threads through the album and positions it somewhere between a horror soundtrack and a sci-fi odyssey.
Passenger blends sleek synths, loops, and samples with a 90s-inspired dance sensibility and the shadowy textures of 80s synth and new wave. Echoes of Factory Records and the Hacienda pulse through the tracks, yet the record remains resolutely its own: a liminal soundscape grounded by Rees’s ethereal vocals, which inhabit characters brooding beneath the surface of human experience. From the insistent dance of Angles Mortz — a track that twists themes of death and internalized shame into something oddly celebratory — to the chiming, pop‑infused hooks of Landslide, Nightbus balance precision and emotional depth with an uncanny ease.
Tracks such as Ascension and The Void merge dream pop, synth-driven electronica, and cinematic textures, echoing the intensity of warehouse raves while exploring weighty themes like addiction, co-dependency, and disassociation. The closing track, Blue in Grey, drifts like a shadow through a twilight landscape, offering a ghostly sanctuary just out of reach. Rees’s songwriting often inhabits a third-person perspective, narrating intensely personal experiences while maintaining a haunting detachment — a hallmark that gives the album its existential edge.
Nightbus’s journey to Passenger is as deliberate as the record itself. The duo cut their teeth on the Manchester scene, performing in intimate venues and headlining notable spaces including Paris’ Supersonic, Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, and Manchester institutions YES and Night and Day Cafe. Their signing to independent label Melodic Records marked a turning point, but the album was already complete, an organic evolution of their sound rather than a project born from industry expectations.
Now, with their first headline tour kicking off, Nightbus are revisiting older tracks with a live drummer, reimagining them and breathing new life into their set. “I feel like I’ve fallen back in love with old songs I enjoy, as they’ve just been brought to life with Ellie,” Rees says. For fans, it’s an opportunity to experience the duo’s music anew — simultaneously familiar and transformed.
Nightbus ask what it means to be a passenger in your own life — who’s driving, and what lies beneath the surface — and leave listeners navigating the answers long after the last note fades.
