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Month: October 2018

Live Review: Superorganism at the O2 Ritz

Written by Hannah O'Gorman on . Posted in Reviews.

Superorganism have ruined concerts for me.

On Thursday 25th October I lost my concert virginity. And yes, I realise that you are already questioning my authority as a music journalist. What would I possibly compare it to? But who can blame me for wanting to save myself for someone special? I don’t want to be wasting my tickets on the Wiggles. Fortunately for me, eight knights in shining armour came to court me in the form of Superorganism, an indie pop band based in London.

This is a band who understands both fans and those with short attention spans. The fact that their eighth member is Robert Strange, a visual graphic designer, meant that my millennial vine-watching eyeballs were never short of something to look at. That, in addition to the heavily sampled electronic music with seven musicians playing at once whilst doing quasi-choreography, is overstimulating in the best way. I felt like I was watching something new and perfect for a generation who can’t watch a film without their hand physically aching for their phone. At the same time, this feels ironic for a band whose lyrics seem counter-cultural, as seen in Everybody Wants to be Famous, and Reflections on the Screen. Perhaps it’s not that deep, and as someone who revels in meaningful lyrics, I let go and enjoyed the band for what they are, some really neat sounds.

Now call me a potato-brained dimwit but there is something innate in me that gets the biggest rush from someone merely mentioning somewhere I’ve been. Superorganism knows this. Now although I am inexperienced, I know that they didn’t invent bands mentioning the name of the city they are in, but they went beyond this. Orono consistently addressed us as Manchester, and on the screen during Night time there was video of her cycling down our very suburban streets. Now you may feel that this is a primitive thing to be pleased about, but it all contributed to the idea that they were thrilled to be there, and by proxy, so was I!

At this point I must play on an instrument of my own, your heart strings. Growing up a mixed race, round faced POC, I knew early on that no one in music looked like me. I remember being very keen on Noodle from Gorillaz because that was the only representation I had. Therefore to see Orono on stage made me feel unnecessarily emotional, one day she will be someone else’s Noodle without the racially insensitive namesake and made of actual flesh and blood. At the ripe age of 19, she runs the whole gambit. To put that into perspective, picture a fresher conducting a crowd of all ages, and performing what is essentially stand up with no material mid-show. Plus, imagine if that fresher could state that “Oasis isn’t that great” on a Manchester stage and not get mauled alive. Freshers can’t do that, but Orono is no fresher.

In conclusion, I will never forget this gig, and in order to preserve my memory of it I went so far as to review it. The epilogue to this is that I did go and see another gig, and although the jangly sound of boy pablo are somewhat soothing and fitting for a Made in Chelsea trailer, like some overworked meringues, I have peaked too soon.

Reviewed by Lola Martin

Live Interview: Puma Blue at YES

Written by Hannah O'Gorman on . Posted in Reviews.

Photo by Gaëlle Marquet Le Coat

With a UK/Ireland tour, a few dates in East Asia and a new EP coming soon, Puma Blue, also known as Jacob Allen, is having a busy couple of months .
We met him before the gig and had a chat about what he’s been up to recently.

Walking into the appropriately named Pink Room at YES, we are greeted by a diverse crowd of people. The chill vibes of the crowd match the ambient lighting while we all wait for Puma Blue to start. Once the show starts, the feel of the room changes completely, replacing this patient chill crowd with one completely in tune with each other and the music.

Puma Blue, whose sound has no boundaries, besides a possible comparison to “Goth R&B”, greets the room with a super clean performance and fantastic sounds. The combination of the guitars, the saxophone, and bass melts so well into each other, giving the audience a brand-new sound experience different to anything we have ever heard live before.

Photo by Gaëlle Marquet Le Coat

As a venue, YES is perfectly suited to Puma Blue’s sound. The soothing pink lights match the soft and pure voice and nostalgic guitar sounds. The intimacy of the room contributes to the closeness we feel with the artist, giving it less of a performance, and more of an intimate feel. The whole event just feels as if the band is on the same level as the crowd.

The connection from Puma Blue to their music, hits a particular feeling, as their music gives quite a nostalgic feel from the tune of the guitars, and the use of saxophone solos.
The sound is incredible and the pink lights transform this already intimate show into a very sensual experience. Puma Blue gives a remarkable performance, the audience vibrates at every sax solo. The crowd cheers as Jacob eventually thanks the audience and the two support bands Sunken and Chartreuse; “the best bands in the world in my opinion”.

 

Interview:

Your debut EP, Swum Baby came out last year and you have already got a new one coming up in 2 weeks.
—— 2 weeks?

Yeah 2 weeks! 
—— Oh wow, it genuinely is haha.

Can you tell us a bit more about the new EP, Blood Loss?
—— Sure! It’s longer than the first one. It’s more like a body of work. Whereas the first one kinda felt more like a mixtape. It was just five songs, I tried to have some cohesion between them. This time it’s meant to be like a longer piece, so the tunes kind of fit together. I really prefer it this way, it’s really more about just like vulnerability and acceptance and think about things, and yeah if you like it’s just more bit more of an introspective piece of work.

I read that your new song Midnight Blue was produced in your bedroom. Are all the songs of the EP produced in your bedroom? Also is that a thing you’ve already been doing in the past? 
—— Pretty much all of them yeah. There’s a couple tunes were I need the live band . So I’ll Go to the studio and do the work, in like a live room with all of us playing together. But most of the time, it’s just me and the laptop. It is just the easiest way I can articulate what I’m trying to do. I just like fussing around with it for ages on my own the entire time.

When did you start playing music and when did you start playing as Puma Blue?
—— I started playing music when I was seven years old. I got really into the drums, I was like a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan. And I just wanted to be in a rock band basically, or like a funk band or something. Then I started writing songs when I was 13, then I started playing guitar because I was fed up with not being able to contribute anything to rehearsals other than just drums. Then I left college when I was 18, and starting giging for a year or two before I started calling it puma Blue. I didn’t feel like it needed a name at the time. I was just using my actual name. That was in like 2015.

What is Puma Blue? It sounds really smooth.
—— Well, that’s part of it you know. You don’t really want a jarring name. If you’re going to pick a name, it needs to feel very easy on the tongue or it needs to relate to the music, even if it’s just in a linguistic way. I was just trying to get something that feels like an old blues guys name like Howlin’ Wolf or Lead Billy. Those two-part superhero type names. Blue just felt really appropriate to what I was trying to do to with the sound. It’s like a colour I’ve always been drawn to. And Puma was honestly just another thought put into it, just felt like some sort of slinky counterpart with the word blue so it kind of just stuck.

I really struggle to find a genre when it comes to describing music. I find it terrible to qualify things in general, but how would you qualify your music or the direction it takes?
—— I try not to. I think it’s more than intention than a style of genre. I always try to make music with the same soul to it, the same direction but not necessarily like the sound. So I don’t know. It feels kinda dynamic? I like sort of heavy and soft at the same time, like light and dark. Someone once said like “Gothic R&B” and I really like that. But I really don’t know, but I guess in a really boring way it’s just alternative rock. People call it jazz but it generally isn’t either. People call it straight up soul but I don’t know either.

So tonight’s show is part of the UK/Ireland tour. How is it going? How many shows are you doing?——Great yeah I’m really tired. This is day five and were doing 4 more I think? It’s really nice, I love touring with the boys. Because we are all really close and it’s really exciting getting that feeling from different cities each night you know. It’s never just the same crowd.

This venue is new so obviously you’ve never played here, how is the sound? I heard its really good.
—— Really good and it’s always a rule with new venues that they haven’t set up everything properly yet but it’s really good in there. I came off stage feeling really comfortable.

I read that you have a tour in Japan and South Korea. Like why? How? 
—— I know! That’s what I am asking myself too! Basically we got an offer to do one in store gig out in Japan, like retail. And it paid enough for us to get a flight so we thought why wouldn’t we do it?

And do you have a fan base there? 
——Yeah apparently, we’re doing pretty well in Tokyo. People are ordering vinyl out there and stuff. And we thought while we were out there, let’s just book our own show with a headline slot. And off the back of some crazy big Korean pop band sharing one of my tunes, we’ve got a following in Korea now as well. We’re just going to cross over the pond a little bit and play in Seoul for one or two days and head home.

That’s really impressive. Have you ever been to Asia?
——I really like Japan as an idea I really just want to go and see it.
I have never been to Asia so I’m really excited to go and see it.

I think I’ve asked all of my questions so I’ll ask what have you been listening to lately?
—— Yeah the new Mansur Brown album is incredible. He’s a friend of a friend and I’ve met him once or twice but yeah he’s just a crazy guitarist. He just dropped an album and produced it all himself and it’s really cool. I just thought it was all going to be lots of like jazz stuff but it’s way cooler than that. I recommend that since I’ve been listening to it quite a lot.

Thank you for having us. It’s like our first interview and we’re going to try and do it live on our radio show. Because we want to have bands kind of come in and do podcasts and that kinda stuff. So thank you. 
—— Oh that sounds so cool. No worries.

 

Listen to Puma Blue below:

 

Review by Gaëlle Marquet Le Coat and Grace Burns

Interview by Gaëlle Marquet Le Coat

Live Review: Honey Dijon at Annie Mac Presents WHP

Written by Anja Samy on . Posted in Reviews.

Honey Dijon’s set, at Annie Mac Presents at The Warehouse Project on Friday October 12th, was a skilfully crafted musical collage, which sampled well known soul, pop and rap tracks, all glued together by elements of house and disco.

Honey Dijon grew up in the South Side of Chicago during the 70’s and 80’s. Her passion for music began as a child, selecting soul, funk and Motown records for parties in her parents’ basement, and progressed alongside the birth of house music from disco in the very city she was born and raised in.

Honey’s effortless cool comes from her transcendence of the conventions and pretensions of the house music scene. “I play music vibrationally so people can feel good,” she explained in an interview with The Quietus, “I don’t care about playing some rare f***ing tune so that three guys at the back can nod to themselves at how clever I am. […] I am all about finding new records but I do not pontificate on it and I definitely don’t base my identity as an artist on it.” (http://thequietus.com/articles/24155-honey-dijon-interview) This philosophy makes Honey Dijon a mastermind of genre crossing and the queen of dance floor inclusivity.

It was incredibly busy at Annie Mac Presents, with a crowd a little on the younger side, which is to be expected considering the massive popularity of The Warehouse Project with students and the well known Radio 1 DJ headlining the night. But despite this the atmosphere never descended into a stereotypical student club vibe, instead it felt like people were there for the music and for a good boogie.

Honey Dijon set off her main stage set around midnight with an unexpected but sensational house remix of Beyoncé’s Déjà Vu and from then on it was clear anything was possible.

As pink lights shimmered across the LED panels around her, Honey brought up the bass and teased the crowd several times with a sample from the intro of Show Me Love, by Robin S, before dropping the crowd fully into this diva house anthem. From here, she transitioned through a bongo beat into a disco track with hints of a dancehall vibe you could really shake it to.

Not many DJs could take a crowd on such a journey, all within the first few minutes of their set, without it sounding disjointed. It is a true testament to Honey Dijon’s technical abilities and her deep understanding of the relations between genres of music, that none of the tracks sounded out of place.

What’s more, Honey seems to understand that DJ-ing is not just a performance but an interaction – she certainly knows how to work a crowd, playing with the volume and speed of the music, and switching things up just enough to keep people on their toes without throwing off their groove.

As her set became heavier the lights changed to match, going from shimmering light colours to bars of deep reds and then blues, meanwhile a haze from the fog machines built in time to a crescendo of echoes.

From here the beat became more driving and Honey once again worked her magic – seamlessly bringing in rap, followed by a voice clip, which I believe was from a speech by Martin Luther King jr. To top off this venture away from traditional house, Honey threw another curve ball by mixing in This is America by Childish Gambino.

Although Honey Dijon has never spoken directly about politics in interviews, her inclusion of the speech and this track could be seen as a nod to the current socio-political climate of America and the Black Lives Matter movement which the song references.

After ‘This is America’, things became a little more funky with the introduction of the iconic Superstition, by Stevie Wonder alongside samples of some sexy saxophone.
As unpredictable as ever, Honey then managed to seamlessly transition back to house with Ultra Naté’s Free, bringing in strings to create even more of a 90’s Ibiza feeling. With a high energy disco finale, Honey Dijon certainly made things easier for the headliner of the night, Annie Mac, leaving the crowd buzzing.

Honey’s set was in many ways a celebration of the music of black artists, dancing between genres from the past few decades right up to present day. This is particularly important in a music scene which, despite originally being based on the music of black, Hispanic and LGBT clubs, has become predominantly white, heterosexual and CIS-male. Through regularly featuring music from people of colour and her very presence as a black, trans woman, Honey Dijon revives the cultural history behind the house and disco anthems we love, while simultaneously making her own unique mark on the scene with her expertly executed genre-bending sets.

Reviewed by Anja Samy

Live Review/Interview: Art School Girlfriend at YES

Written by Hannah O'Gorman on . Posted in Reviews.

Art School Girlfriend is the moniker of Polly Mackey, a Margate based multi-instrumentalist making waves with her own brand of mesmerizing electronic pop. After hearing of the rising buzz around Mackey’s latest project I decided to see her for myself, catching up with her after the show. She played in the basement space of Manchester’s newest music venue, YES, supported by up and coming dream pop outfit, Dream English Kid.

YES is a venue spread across four floors, each with a distinct vibe ideal for different events. We make our way from the bright stylish pizza bar into the purple glow of the club space below. I take note of a girl in a bright red work-wear boiler-suit thinking it was a pretty original fashion choice. I then notice another suit. Then another. At this point I realise this must be the support band dotted about rather than some lightning fast fashion development I was unaware of. Sure enough the four of them make their way to the stage like a sort of psychedelic British Gas team.

Dream English Kid

Dream English Kid swing into action, playing under grainy black and white projections of trapeze artists, pylons, tiny dancing shadows and more. Though seemingly random, the found footage fits together beautifully into a visual stream of consciousness. This compliments the melancholy dreaminess of Dream English Kid’s music. Heavily distorted guitars along with twinkly electronics and sweet vocal harmonies form a sound reminiscent of dream pop giants, Beach House, though often with a darker shoegaze spin. This is a young band with huge potential and a mature approach to their themes, namely the confusion of growing up in current times. With only one track available so far, I am very much looking forward to future releases.

After a short wait, Art School Girlfriend arrives onto a stage flooded with blue light. A minimalist light box displays her stage name. This moody, stripped back set up creates the ideal setting to get lost in Mackey’s hazy production and sauntering beats. She opens with the flowing violin style synthesizers of An Uncomfortable Month from her 2017 EP, Measures. The band is kitted out with guitars, synthesizers, drum machines, drum pads and a traditional drum-kit bringing new depth to Mackey’s solo tracks. She tells us after the show that her songwriting process never goes from the beginning of the song. She starts with the sounds to be used and forms melodies and lyrics around them. Lately however, the band are somewhat more involved in the process. “It’s getting more collaborative now since I’ve been playing with the boys and now I’m more open to other people having input in the songs”. This shows in their live performance with the full band adding atmosphere and a more organic flow to the music.

The night’s closing track, Moon, is from Art School Girlfriend’s latest EP, Into The Blue Hour, released earlier this year. This is a track with a heavy focus on electronics. Its dark pop beat starts to wake an entranced crowd into a little dance to finish. Moon is a good example of her breakaway from previous guitar led projects. When her last band broke up, Mackey says she listened to a lot of pirate radio stations. In a sense, this cleansed her musical palate. Listening to so much new music has given her a new set of sounds to experiment with and left her less reliant on her guitar alone.

What shone throughout Art School Girlfriend’s set was the expressiveness in her face and voice in such a small venue. To see her perform live is to feel the emotion in her lyrics. There is an authentic yearning in her voice that leaves you longing without necessarily knowing what for. For that full intensity, I recommend you catch Art School Girlfriend playing in one of these more intimate venues. The aforementioned buzz growing around her releases was not misplaced, so I expect she won’t be playing in such small spaces for very much longer.

Check out Moon below:

Reviewed by Hannah O’Gorman

Interview: You Me At Six

Written by Mia Edwards on . Posted in News.

You Me at Six have recently released their sixth studio album, aptly named VI. I
had the pleasure of speaking to lead guitarist Max Helyer about their new album
and their upcoming tour for Fuse FM.

Alana: First of all I’d just like to say thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to us at Fuse, it’s brilliant to be able to chat to you.

Max: ‘No worries, anytime’

A: So we’re talking about your new album and I feel like with this album
there’s a lot of energy and it kind of feels like a breath of fresh air. Do you
personally and as a band, feel proud of the album you’ve created?

M: ‘To be honest with you, you’ve absolutely nailed it on the head there Alana, it was
like a breath of fresh air for us as a band, ‘cause we were challenging ourselves to
listen and try and do something different and take inspiration from the music we
listen to which is quite a wide dynamic you know of how much different styles of
music we listen to so we tried to incorporate that into our record and like you
said really have fun with it music’s supposed to be about having fun and enjoying
yourself and I think that really does come across in the songs we’ve written for
this record. To be honest with you it was just a great experience and it all came
very naturally and the whole record was really formed around the space of 2
months, the majority of the record, so I think that shows we were on to
something. We were just having a great time being around each other, writing
and creating music in different ways that we’ve never done before.’

A: You’ve gone for a few different sounds in the album. Fast Forward is
rockier then you’ve got Back Again, which is slightly more indie sounding
and then 3AM where you’ve got synths and more of a pop sound. Is there a
reason that you wanted to get in a mix of different sounds?

M: ‘I think we’ve always had that element in our band but maybe to not the extremes people have heard like this before. I think really the most important thing was just capturing energy and moments and times in our
life that were going on in the last year or so and putting it down into music. Fast
Forward is quite an upbeat rock, quite loud in your face one but that was a time
when there was personal stuff going on in our lives, hence the reason you want
to fast forward through, you wanna get through some bad stuff and come out the
other side and it’s gonna be good. I think we had to match that kind of lyrical
content with the energy of the music as well and we felt something like rockier
was the right direction with that but then Back Again definitely, for me the
reason that song came from was trying to get a Friday night feeling going, when
people are switching off from Friday from work and going ‘right I’m going down
the pub and I’m going to get myself a gin and tonic and I’m going to have a great
weekend’, that sums up that song and same kind of with 3am as well it’s like,
who hasn’t had a night going out ‘til 3am and having a drunken stumble home
and just going through your phone, like I think everybody can kind of relate to
these moments in their life, we just kind of have our own way of interpreting
that.

A: You’ve said that there were times when you had personal stuff going on,
are there any songs on the album that stood out as being particularly
challenging to make?

M: ‘I would say a challenging song was I.O.U. It’s a bit of mix-mash throughout that
song, it’s kind of got a bit of funk, it’s got rock and a bit of hip hop all into it and
it’s sections and for us we have the ideas we’re like ‘this sounds really good’ but
it was kind of gluing the puzzle together, getting it all perfectly in tact and like
‘how do we link this section to this section?’ and that was something that really
kind of happened in the studio. It was very natural but that was great because
when we worked on this record with a guy called Dan Austin he heard and
understood the vision that we had for that song and he was challenging us as
well, which enhanced the song and made it a better song. So that was definitely
one of the more challenging songs that we had to do on this record but one of the
best ones I think in my opinion.’

A: You’re also going on tour in November, are you excited to get back on the
road again?

M: ‘Yeah definitely. For us playing live shows is like our bread and butter,
something we’ve always done and we’ve been doing it for about 12/13 years
now so for us live shows are really important, and I think that’s where people
can understand. I think if you like us on record you’ll love us even more live. I
think there’s a bit more of an energy that doesn’t maybe sometimes cross over
onto our record. And we’re also doing a 10 year anniversary tour for our first
record and the response to that has been overwhelming, we’re all humbly
surprised by that and to see that there’s a record that we’ve made that’s stood
the test of time for 10 years and people still want to see that is something that
we’re all very proud of.’

A: And you’re playing in Manchester on the 23rd and 24th of November at the
Victoria Warehouse which is a great venue so hopefully you’ll have a lot of fun there. Is there a particular place you love playing?

M: ‘We’re looking forward to playing Manchester because we’ve actually never
played the warehouse before. We’ve done all the academy’s, we’ve done the
Apollo a fair few times now and we’ve done the Manchester Arena as well so for
us to play a new venue in Manchester, I think we’re all sitting there being like
‘let’s see how this goes’ ‘cause we’ve heard great reviews about the venue from
friends and bands who’ve played it before and said it’s one of the best shows on
tour.’

A: As you’ve said you’ve been a band for a pretty long time, does it ever get
tough spending a lot of time together and how do you stay grounded as a
band?

M: ‘I would say we’re like a band of brothers to be honest with you. Our friendship
and our bond has grown strength to strength over the years. We’ve gone through
good times, we’ve gone through bad times and I think that’s kind of developed us
into the band and who we are, you know, when you have all those things that
happen in your life. We’ve done it from a very early age, we started the band
when we were like 15/16 so I think we’ve grown together and I classify them as
my family now and even all their mums and dads, it’s all extended family. So to
us we have a great time doing what we do and I think that’s the most important
thing and I think that’s the reason why our new record sounds fun and energetic
because that’s our outlook on life just have fun and enjoy yourself. You know
we’re very lucky to be making music after all this time so you know let’s just
enjoy it as much as we can.’

A: Has there ever been anything go catastrophically wrong whilst you’ve performed?

M: ‘There’s definitely been a few moments in our career, I won’t tell you all of them
but the one I remember recently, it was about last year or the year before when
we played Reading Festival and we had a massive power cut during our set but
the one thing that was working was Josh’s microphone so he did an acapella of
one of our songs while we were all waiting for the power to come back but it
kind of created this moment like it was a memorable point and we got all the
crowd singing along and it was just one of those things we looked at and we
didn’t even need the music, people were so in the zone that they were just like
‘yeh we’re into this’ it’s so different you know, so you can turn bad things that
happen on stage into great moments.  You’ve got to keep on your toes when you’re playing live, you encounter many
things, it’s just how you react and deal with it.’

A: Well it sounds like you saved it. I reckon you wereall right in the end.

M: ‘Yeh… we definitely were.’

You Me at Six perform in Manchester at the O2 Victoria Warehouse on the 23rd and 24th of November and their sixth studio album VI is out now. I reckon they’ve done more than all right

Interview by Alana Cook

Live Review: Gazelle Twin at Soup Kitchen

Written by Mia Edwards on . Posted in Reviews.

For us human beings to peacefully coexist with one another, an element of performance and disguise is critical.  We exaggerate our best qualities and conceal our worst.  We take on characteristics abnormal to us to resolve our differences with others.  However, as much as it helps us prosper as a species, this personal compromise is the source of our unhappiness, frustrations and terror, and makes us fear our own individuality.  Maybe Freud or someone wrote something about it, maybe in Civilisation and its Discontents, maybe in, I don’t know, chapter two?  But who am I to say?  I’m no shrink.

Gazelle Twin is a producer and vocalist from Brighton.  She had a new record out recently.  This is about all I know about her and I’m not sure I want to know any more.  She played a gig at Soup Kitchen on Thursday 4th October, charming and scaring me in equal measure.  Bar an anonymous knob fiddler hunched over a desk to her right, she was alone on a stage devoid of embellishments or decoration, placing the visual focus of the performance entirely on her costume and body.  She pranced around onstage in full red and white attire like a giant tin of Red Stripe channelling Godzilla, leaving only her lips exposed.  Sometimes her performance was reminiscent of rap gigs I’ve been to in her confrontational, just-me-and-the-mic-in-this-bitch demeanour (see above).  But however she carried herself, her physicality was always like an extension of the music itself, and her idiosyncratic dance moves synced perfectly with music.  She yelped, screamed and whispered over broken synth loops.  The huge kicks and shimmering industrial snares scarcely held the tracks together, leaving the crowd asking themselves ‘‘Should we be dancing to this?  Is it going to look bad if I go for a cig?’’.  Her songs are very formulaic and her sound niche.  But it was never boring.  You can get away with it with such musicianship and finesse.

My favourite moment of the night came when she burst into an unexpected acoustic recorder solo.  Somehow she had appropriated this infantile, undignified instrument into something capable of paralysing Manchester’s young scenesters into stunned silence.  If before she was a rapper, now she was an otherworldly nymph, enchanting those who dared enter her realm.  It sounds strange saying that the sheer ridiculousness of her act seemed entirely normal.  At the end of the day she is an illusion, a contrived hodgepodge, a sum of a million different cultural sources, yet with such an original sound and aggressive demeanour.  If she wasn’t so relatable, perhaps we would be laughing at Gazelle Twin instead of lauding her.

Review by Joe McGavin

Photo by Hannah O’Gorman