Summer 2016 and, for the the first time probably ever, Miss Houston is only the second-most talked about Whitney on the block. With understated, heartstring-tugging early single ‘No Woman’ propelling former Smith Westerns players Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek immediately into the uppermost realms of the alternative music world’s buzz list, an album – the near-perfect ‘Light Upon The Lake’ – followed, succeeded by a year that most can only dream of. Within 12 months, the band went from playing an early London show at a warehouse day party to selling out the city’s 1,500-capacity KOKO. Elton John declared himself a fan. After an incessant period of touring, they finally capped things off with a free outdoor show in their home of Chicago. 13,000 people showed up. “It felt legitimately like a really big thing, for the city and for us. It was crazy,” nods Julien now. “But we also worked really hard on that record, too. So we’re just grateful really.”

Following a, by all accounts, fraught split from their old band (“That previous experience taught us the importance of being humble; we learned through the most intense way what taking things for granted can do to your project…” says Max), the pair had emerged from the situation with an album that exuded warmth and softness, and an audible sensitivity that resonated with all that it reached. “The people that we had worked with in the past were kinda toxic, so it felt really good to do something in a genuinely good situation where we just only have love for each other and the people that we work with,” Julien explains, speaking down the phone from his hometown, where he’s sat with his bandmate, shooting the shit.

We’re catching up with the pair because, alongside the announcement of their live return later this year where they’ll step up to the even-bigger Roundhouse in London as part of a series of dates up and down the country, they’ve also wrapped up album two. They’re keeping its title under wraps, and they’re not sure when new material will begin to surface (although they “can’t imagine” they won’t have something out before their first comeback show at Pitchfork Chicago in July), but everything else? It’s all, very excitingly, in the bag.