Hot Press meets Nanu Nanu

She is Glitterface, a time-travelling, dimension-skipping, shapeshifting alien beauty, with a permanently glimmering visage and a set of claws that could literally take your eye out. He is Mirrorman, another time-travelling, dimension-skipping, shapeshifting alien, although we can’t tell you much about his aesthetic prowess, as his face is mostly obscured by a mirrored mask. Together they are Nanu Nanu, and if you’re not sure what a pair of otherworldly magpies have got to do with the world of spooky electronic pop, you only have to wrap your ears around Unit 1, their trail-blazing new album, which has already been dubbed one of the best debuts of the year.

To pin the elusive Glitterface and Mirrorman down for a chat, we’d have to scare up a Richard Branson-sized budget to take us into orbit, so we’ll settle for their human counterparts Laura Sheeran and Marc Aubele, who I’ve tracked down to a petrol station in Galway.
“We’ve had these alter-egos on the go from the very start,” Sheeran tells me, “and it was a really conscious decision, because I have my solo music and Marc was playing a lot at the time with Bell X1 and other bands. We wanted to just have a very clear identity from the beginning, so when people saw us live they would immediately think Nanu Nanu and not go, ‘Oh that’s that girl from that other gig I saw...’
“It’s also kind of liberating in terms of the performance thing. You feel like you can be very free and it’s all in the name of this other being. You don’t feel so much like, ‘I have to put my name to this thing,’ you just do it and try and have as much fun as you can!”
As anyone who’s seen the Nanu Nanu live show will attest, Sheeran and Aubele pour just as much energy into their performances as they do their alien aliases, incorporating light and video elements, and in Sheeran’s case, some wild but infectious hand gestures.
“I went to see Beyoncé recently and it was just so cool,” she beams. “When you see that energy in action and that level or production, you realise that it hardly exists in this country, unless you’re a massive act and people are putting loads of money into you. I think it would be really great if smaller bands started trying to embrace that level of production themselves. There’s no reason why they can’t try to do
stuff like that, but it doesn’t seem to be a trend for us.”
Are the Irish, perhaps, too self-conscious for showmanship?
“We are very self-conscious as a nation,” she agrees. “You even see that in the audiences a lot. But when we’re gigging, I’m trying to practice smiling more when I’m singing, even just little things like that. When you look like you’re having a good time, think it’s infectious and people do start to loosen up and have a bit of a boogie!”
Trying to echo stadium show theatrics on a shoestring is no mean feat, but then, Aubele and Sheeran were never ones to do things the conventional way. Case in point, if you purchase a copy of Unit 1 on vinyl, you’ll be treated to an accompanying photographic comic, created in collaboration with photographer Hazel Coonagh.
“The whole concept behind that is that Mirrorman and Glitterface landed on Planet Earth and we’re like, ‘Oh, what’s going on here, like? This place is mental!’ and we’re travelling through all these different times, learning about the constructs of the human race. All the songs have a different theme – that wasn’t really intentional, it just kind of worked out that way! – but each time Mirrorman and Glitterface learn a lesson, we write a song and send it via mp3 back to our Mothership!”
I can’t wait to see how they tackle ‘Seahorse’, a trippy slowburner that takes place under the sea.
“We’ve got some cool pictures of scuba divers and things so we’re just going to try and put our faces on, like a Photoshop job! We’re trying to make the comic whatever way we can, with the resources we have. I think it’s good when you’re forced to – what’s that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. That’s pretty much been the whole story of our band!”

Unit 1 is out now on Flaming June Records.