| We close out the year with a night from es.cher, MAY and Maiden. | 
Words and Photos: Hazel Blacher |
| | When December rolls around, the late autumn spike in live music begins its sharp, tipsy descent towards a state of festive dormancy; a time when merriment, family and reflection often take precedence over any tastemaking endeavours. Those still hungry for an eleventh-hour musical excursion to cutting edge pastures new, however, found all of their needs thoroughly met last week in the astute curational hands of Laura Pacifici. A grassroots London promoter with a finger so on-the-pulse that many bands featured on her bills are in their earliest developmental stages, Lau creates vital underground spaces for artists and audiences alike to blossom. | | DIGI is one such gig series spearheaded by Pacifici at East London's Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes, geared towards spotlighting new electronic projects. Its in-the-round format fosters an intimate performance setting that feels worlds away from the venue's standard set up – more like a trendy NYC basement than a traditional gig space – and on this night, Maiden, MAY and es.cher took to the floor for an evening of impeccably curated, vogueish abundance. One last hurrah before we all retire to our hometowns to black out into a cheeseboard with Finding Nemo blaring in the background for two hazy, gluttonous weeks. | | Notably fresh on the live scene, openers Maiden inform the audience that this is only their third ever gig, and with a support slot for James K already under their belts in Manchester last month, we were intrigued to witness what the London four piece had been brewing. Drifting with a brooding, grungy potency, the group entwine gothy shoegaze textures with an atmospheric dream pop reverie – low, sweeping synth basslines and leaden drums drizzle under a haunting, apparitional vocal ambience. It is a filmic, melancholic, and captivating start to the evening, making for the perfect soundtrack to chain smoke cigarettes in a graveyard wearing the denchest pair of black combat boots this side of the wardrobe department for 'The Crow'. | | Next on the bill was experimental alt-pop enigma MAY, an artist whose infectiously fun and swaggering recent single 'Cynthia' marked her on our radar as an artist to catch in the flesh. Garbed in a grey tracksuit with bubblegum pink locks, her set is a shapeshifting collagist homage to noughties pop textures, with an abstract, experimental edge that elevates it above the simplified, derivative Y2K revival slop we are beginning to see en-masse following the Brat Summer explosion of the aesthetic. MAY leans into this trend, but in a cool-as-fuck way that feels open-ended and eclectic. Time-honoured R&B pop beats intersperse with glitchy solo electronics and abstracted hyperpop verses; trip-hop beats segue into gliding string sections; Lemon Jelly-esque samples sandwich between bedroom harmonies and sleazy club drum loops. In all, it's a harlequin delight of experimentation that leaves us pepped up and inspired. | | Closing out the evening are es.cher, a fast-rising multi-disciplinary producer whose emotive, lo-fi introversions paired with electronic flourishes and painterly surrealist artwork have garnered them a cult following over the last 12 months. Nursing a glass of red wine with a tousled mop of hair obscuring their features for the majority of the set, es.cher unleashed a plaintive soundscape of maximalist guitar electronica. Performing with a drummer, the set fused an Alex G-esque tenderness with icy cold experimental electronic textures that calls to mind artists like Chanel Beads, finished with an emo sensibility that speaks to the aggrieved, hooded teenager swigging their parents' stolen vodka that lays dormant in all of us. The mood completed by a self-effacing aura that only adds to their air of mystery and intrigue, their set ends abruptly after only a handful of words shared with the audience. | | We leave with our cups full, tinnies empty and inquisitiveness sated for another vibrant season, grateful for promoters like Laura for their contributions to the flourishing, superlative creative scene in the UK – a country where the arts is often shunted to the back of the queue. | | | | |
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