Northampton duo Fountain are back with ‘It’s Ordinary,’ their first new music since the ‘Big Bag of New Nothings’ EP earlier this year, and the beginning of another run of singles.

Fountain are Jordan Noon on guitar and vocals and Alistair Wilkinson on drums and backing vocals. The pair have actually been making music together for much longer than the band itself has existed, having first worked together around twelve years ago before getting back together in 2023 and starting again as Fountain.

That familiarity comes across in ‘It’s Ordinary.’ There are only two of them and the song is barely over two minutes long, so there isn’t much room for anything unnecessary. Noon’s guitar does most of the talking while Wilkinson keeps the whole thing moving underneath him, and the rough edges have sensibly been left alone.

The track was produced by Lee Russell, who also worked with the band on ‘Big Bag of New Nothings.’ Fountain have spoken before about simplifying their arrangements and giving individual parts more room, and ‘It’s Ordinary’ continues along those lines. It is direct without sounding rushed, and catchy without having the life polished out of it.

Fountain’s wider tastes have always gone beyond the obvious garage-rock references. They have talked about Thee Oh Sees and Queens of the Stone Age, but also Ennio Morricone and their interest in film music, which perhaps explains why even their short, fairly stripped-down songs tend to have a little more atmosphere around them than you might expect from guitar and drums alone.