REDOLENT + SLOW FICTION + YARD + CONGRATULATIONS + DEARY – ‘MUTATIONS: THE NEXT WAVE’, THE FOLKLORE ROOMS, BRIGHTON 16.5.24
With all the changes of lineups for this year’s official Escape festival and the more than ever before ‘Unofficial Escapes’ being announced on a daily basis, I was forced to amend my festival hitlist no less than four times! The final change was to allow for the late announcement of a special ‘Mutations – The Next Wave’ event to be held for one night at The Folklore Rooms, in addition to the annual multi-venue festival which is held in November. This new free entry addition strangely enough included a trio of acts that were on my list and playing elsewhere during the Escape weekend. So this new ‘Mutations – The Next Wave’ event had done me a favour by having them all in one place and so for the next four and a half hours I’m here to take in the delights of a handful of varying acts.
DEARY – Folklore Rooms 20:30 – 21:00
I begin with London based musicians Ben and Dottie who operate as Deary, who were already on my list. In fact Dottie informed us that they are just a duo today but they normally operate as a 4-piece. The order of the day here is wistful dream pop infused with ethereal vibes akin to Slowdive (who they worked with last year) and the Cocteau Twins. Deary came about in the midst of the pandemic with the duo swapping ideas over social media and their eponymous debut EP was released last November and was praised upon its release by the likes of Clash, Brooklyn Vegan, BBC 6 Music, KEXP and Under The Radar. This evening it’s a case of Dottie on vocals and Ben on guitar and electronic backing. Being the first act of the night, meant that at this stage the compact venue was not as yet at full capacity, but those present were behind the band and their dreamy set, which included their first single, ‘Fairground’, from last year. Although enjoyable, I kept thinking that it would sound even better as a live quartet, so maybe I will have a chance of witnessing this in the near future.
CONGRATULATIONS – Folklore Rooms 21:30 – 22:00
The second act on the ‘Mutations – Next Wave’ bill is well known – and judging by the sudden increase of new faces in the room, including Chloë from Plantoid, and Phoebe from Lambrini Girls – well followed Brighton based quartet ‘congratulations’, spelt with a lowercase ‘c’. The outfit consists of Jamie Chellar (guitar, backing vocals), Greg Burns (bass, backing vocals), James Gilligham (drums, Roland presets, backing vocals) and out front and certainly never overlooked is vocalist Leah Stanhope. Over the past three years, the band have popped up on a number of events that we have reviewed and so they are no strangers to us. They often don different primary coloured attire, but this evening it seems not to be the case. As with the previous congratulations encounters I have had, the quartet operate a very tight ship and are well drilled at what they do, which ranges from funky rock to anthemic and aggressive rock…and rock the joint they certainly do. The venue is chokka and they go down a storm. Their next single ‘ST’ is given an airing which sits rather nicely in the mould of last year’s debut ‘Woo Hoo’ EP which came out on Bella Union last September. As always my eyes are mainly glued on Leah on the account of watching her belt out line after line with so much force that the veins in her neck nearly burst with excitement. Coupled with this is the various different facial expressions that she delivers, as well as body poses, which keep myself and others captivated. The only downside this evening was that somehow Jamie managed to cut his eyebrow which bled a bit, but this then gave bassist Greg the cue to utter “That’s about the most punk rock thing that’s happened to us”.
YARD – Folklore Rooms 22:30 – 23:00
You won’t believe it but it’s been a whole two hours…yes two whole hours…since I have last seen the absolutely cosmic YARD performing live! Christ talk about getting withdrawal symptoms! The Dublin quartet had hot-footed it from The Black Lion for their ‘Smithereen Takeover Brighton 2024’ performance. Amazingly, this performance at The Folklore Rooms is actually their third of the day having begun at 4pm at The Prince Albert. This is a milestone for the band in that it’s the very first time they have played live to three different audiences in one day. Another even bigger milestone in my eyes is that this for me is the very first time I have seen the same band play live three times in a day and I have been constantly going to gigs since 1978!! Yes they DID play the same 6 song set three times in a row, with these compositions being the unreleased ‘Trevor’, the 2022 single ‘Auto Erotic’, the unreleased ‘Slumber’, current 2024 single ‘Big Shoes’, 2022 single ‘Lawmaker’ and signing off with the unreleased ‘Sunlight’. The Folklore Rooms were rammed for this uplifting heavy dance set and the blasting sound in the venue was awesome, in fact so much so that one of my colleagues who was walking up North Street could hear the booming from quite a distance away! Fabulous! YARD were a quartet when we first reviewed them eleven months ago, but now have slimmed down to a trio featuring Dan Malone (guitar), Emmet White (bass synth, vocals), and George Ryan (synth, beats), after the departure of Ben O’Neill (vocals, synth, guitar). It really is EBM central here with this outfit with Emmet’s vocals initially grounded in Robert Smith (The Cure) and Ronny Moorings (Clan Of Xymox) territory, but making their way to ending up like Jaz Coleman’s (Killing Joke) most eye bursting screams, whilst musically it’s akin to French musician Perturbator. Once again this has been a truly sensational experience and was even better than their last performance two hours ago! Roll on 1:15am to 1:45am on Saturday morning, where I will catch them live yet again! Guess you could call me a fan!
SLOW FICTION – Folklore Rooms 23:30 – 12:00am
The fourth act on the bill this evening at The Folklore Rooms are New York quintet Slow Fiction, which is made up of Julia Vassallo (vocals, tambourine), Joseph Skimmons (guitar), Paul Knepple (guitar), Ryan Duffin (bass), and Akiva Henig (drums). They dropped their first release, ‘The Cut’/’Niagara’ back in 2021, with their ‘Nameless Harm’ single arriving the following year. Their self titled 6 tune EP arrived the following year and back in March they dropped their 4 track ‘End Of The Night’ EP. Tonight fuzzy, intoxicating tones are on offer during their eight tune decent sounding post punk set. It’s wailing guitars a plenty here, which are led along by Akiva’s drumming, and Julia’s vocals are also decent, but her demeanour is almost of embarrassment by standing in front of us. Her crowd interaction is almost nil, and in between songs she either turns her back to us or has a few drinks of water from the bottle at her feet. Overall this was a solidly tight set with some selections faster than others, and their closing number was their fastest and most urgent (and therefore the best) of the performance.
REDOLENT – Folklore Rooms 12:30am – 1:00am
Closing my ‘Mutations – Next Wave’ encounter this evening were Redolent, (which incidentally is styilized as ‘rEDOLENT’) a Scottish quintet who were born in Dundee, before basing themselves in Edinburgh, and who I already had on my list to see elsewhere. They are a unit that I have seen perform previously on more than one occasion, with one of these being on Bonfire night at the ‘Mutations Festival’ back in 2022, when they played a decent set at the Green Door Store. They are led by brothers Danny (synths) and Robin Herbert (vocals), with Andrew Turnbull on drums, Robbie White on bass, and Alice Hancock on live samplers and backing vocals. After several single and EP releases over the past couple of years, the band have tonight dropped their debut 10 song electronic indie pop album, which is titled ‘Dinny Greet’. They were on sale tonight and we were to have the first opportunity to purchase a copy should we so wish. With the clocks moving into another day, the venue had emptied out a little for the band, which is a shame, but nonetheless the group got on with it and gave us some funky drum led beats. Talking of drums, I note the unusual configuration of three different sized cymbals placed on top of each other and taped together, plus there’s a cowbell on offer too. The decent skipping uplifting tunes seem to whizz by. There is one tune with an almost calypso beat with Scottish sounding Robert Smith style vocals atop. The vocals are all delivered at a speedy pace and they concluded their set with ‘Space Cadet’ from their ‘Make Big Money Fast Online Now’ EP from last year, a tune which builds and builds and benefits from some decent drumming. They tried their hardest but I didn’t think that they were as good as they used to be!
The main ‘Mutations’ Festival 2024 will be taking place at multiple venues across Brighton from 7-10th November. Whilst this years lineup is still to be announced, super early bird weekend tickets are on sale now. Purchase yours HERE.
If you would like to read up about last year’s ‘Mutations’ Festival, then click HERE. For the 2022 reviews, click HERE and then scroll down to the bottom for the other days. The 2021 reviews are located HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
