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The profile · researched 28 September 2026
From a Hackney Wick toilet wall to Village Underground: the slow build of 1-800 GIRLS
Jake Stewart spent years insisting he would never be a DJ. In May 2026 he released a debut album on Epic and is now finishing a year of touring with his only London live show of 2026.
A name off a toilet wall
Jake Stewart came up through indie and new-wave bands, which is not the usual route into breaks and house, and he has been open about how long he resisted the obvious next step. "I always said to myself I wasn't going to be a DJ, because I've always been an indie boy at heart," he said in an interview published in June 2026, describing himself as "predominantly a producer to begin with" who "grew up in indie bands, new wave bands".
The alias arrived by accident. While he was sampling American phone hotlines for a project, someone spray-painted the words "1-800 GIRLS" on the bathroom wall of his Hackney Wick warehouse. He kept it because it "sounds like it should be a girl band — a little bit playful and tongue-in-cheek".
When the band projects ran out of road, the solo work took over, and what emerged was, in his own summary, "a lo-fi slash house, slash broken pop, slash IDM thing". He is now based in Bristol, having come to it through London, and the Portsmouth seafront of his childhood still turns up in the records.
Moods, not genres
Stewart has been putting out tracks and remixes for close to a decade, with work alongside Barry Can't Swim, Real Lies and Joe Smooth along the way. His own framing of the project is deliberately loose: "1-800 GIRLS, for me, is about moods and not genres, although it is electronic music based in breaks, house, electro."
What he actually listens to sits at a distance from that. He has cited post-punk, indie and new wave — The Strokes, Do Nothing, HOMESHAKE — along with post-rock's habit of building and then dropping out, which is audible in the way his tracks hold back before they land. The single "there 4 u" grew from a vocal sample he had kept for years as a placeholder and never replaced, because the placeholder gave the track what he called its "cute simplicity".
He also holds a monthly slot on Rinse FM, broadcasting on Mondays at 19:00 and running steadily across 2024 to 2026, with guest appearances from Council, Hella, Asa Tate and Amita — several of whom later turned up on the album. The project sits with Epic, under Sony Music UK.
LOVE, four years in the making
The debut album was announced on 27 February 2026 and released on 8 May 2026 through Epic Records. It runs to twelve tracks, took four years, and was written, produced and mixed by Stewart alone.
The sequence follows the arc of a relationship — early chemistry and infatuation, then conflict, then something settled — across tracks including "limerence", "sometimes" and "home". The lead single "good love" landed with the announcement, following January's "eye contact" with Council. Art School Girlfriend, Council, Baobei and Hella appear across the record, with SØLV on "ache".
Hella features on "Clarence Pier", named after the Portsmouth amusement pier Stewart knew growing up, and he has explained the track as a deliberate widening of the album's subject: "it's about understanding that love doesn't always come from a relationship, that it comes from being with your friends and family." On the record as a whole he said: "This album is really about growth through love; the kind that breaks you, builds you, and completely reshapes how you see yourself." He asked listeners to take it in order.
What the reviews made of it
The response was not uniform. A review published on 14 May 2026 by Noah McKie treated the 36-minute album as promising but unresolved, arguing that "the ideas are interesting, but they often fail to fully materialise" and that the softer tracks lack momentum however pleasant the production is. His verdict was that the record "comes off unfinished".
The same review singled out two tracks. "everythingtogether" was called "very charming", its "warm and quirky" instrumental set against lo-fi vocals, and read as the clearest case of Stewart's indie instincts surviving contact with a polished electronic finish. "ache", with SØLV, was judged the album's best execution of its colder futurist mode, moving from mechanical to "tender and bittersweet" as the synths warm up.
Pointedly, the review suggested the back catalogue makes the stronger case, praising his atmospheric remix of Good Posture's "Italy". That tension — a producer with a decade of club-facing remixes making a vocal-led pop-adjacent album — is the live question the project has been answering all year.
Learning to play it live
The live show exists partly because Stewart was pushed into it. After years of what he has described as perfectionism, his agent booked shows to force the issue, and the solo live set launched in 2025, touring Bristol, London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Birmingham.
The rig has changed with it. He began laptop-free, playing on vintage hardware, and moved to something portable enough to survive a tour: Ableton, an Akai controller and a programmable MIDI Fighter. He played BBC 6 Music Festival in Manchester on 27 March 2025, with further 2025 dates in London, Belfast, Paris and Canada.
The distinction he draws is between the DJ sets that built the audience and the live show that now carries the album, and the billing for the current run reflects it — the London date is advertised as a full live performance rather than a club set.
Where the project stands, autumn 2026
The touring load through mid-2026 was heavy by his own account: six shows in three days on the UK run, then three inside 24 hours. The American leg sold out in Seattle and at The Echo in Los Angeles. The year's dates also took in Paradise City in Brussels, Lightning in a Bottle and Baby's All Right in New York.
September ran straight through: Come Bye Festival in Abergavenny from 17 to 20 September, Arts Club in Liverpool on 23 September and Think Tank in Newcastle upon Tyne on 24 September. The run ends in London at Village Underground on 30 September, promoted as the only 1-800 GIRLS live show in the city this year.
After that come Dublin's Sound House on 22 October and the Ulster Sports Club in Belfast on 23 October, then a first Australian run — The Rechabite in Perth on 31 October and two nights at The Underpass in Melbourne on 1 and 2 November. As of June 2026 Stewart said a second album was already in progress.
The show, now
The current show is a solo live performance rather than a DJ set — the distinction the promoters are leaning on for the London date — built from Ableton with an Akai controller and a programmable MIDI Fighter, a deliberately portable replacement for the vintage hardware rig Stewart started out on. The material is drawn from LOVE, released on 8 May 2026, whose guest vocals from Art School Girlfriend, Council, Baobei, Hella and SØLV have to be carried by the machine on stage, set against the club-facing breaks and house tracks that built the audience over the preceding decade. The run has been relentless: on the mid-2026 UK leg he played six shows in three days and at one point three in 24 hours, and the American dates sold out in Seattle and at The Echo in Los Angeles. September 2026 took in Come Bye Festival in Abergavenny from the 17th to the 20th, Arts Club in Liverpool on the 23rd and Think Tank in Newcastle upon Tyne on the 24th, before Village Underground in London on 30 September, billed as the only 1-800 GIRLS live show in the city this year. Dublin's Sound House follows on 22 October and the Ulster Sports Club in Belfast on 23 October, then Perth's The Rechabite on 31 October and two nights at The Underpass in Melbourne on 1 and 2 November. Detailed press reviews of the live show are thin so far; the clearest measure of how it is going over is the sold-out US dates and the decision to hold London back to a single night.
Researched from hungermag.com · overblown.co.uk · mancunion.com · dancewax.net · rinse.fm · songkick.com · villageunderground.co.uk · sonymusic.co.uk
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