Riding a tidal wave of a comedown from the intense summer heat, these two acts arose from our ashes - one legendary Canadian outfit and a debut act trying out their latest material for the very first time.
Cryalot at Electrowerkz, London
The latest project to arrive from musician Sarah Bonito transcends the gothic, the spiritual and the angelic at her debut show at Electrowerkz.
From a dimly-lit room within the cramped corners of Angel, arrived the luminescent frivolity of Sarah Bonito, otherwise known as tonight’s performer Cryalot. Entangled in a myriad of fairy lights beseeching an angelic costume, the artist waded through the audience from the back of the room, eventually setting foot on stage to heightened anticipation.
Hailing originally from the eclectic trio of Kero Kero Bonito, one of the city’s finest and most cherished underground projects infusing electropop, dancehall and j-pop, her latest solo project has at last birthed a daring debut EP, Icarus, for the adorned crowd tonight. Navigating through the outdrawn distortions of ‘See You Again’, fuzzy basslines of ‘Hurt Me’ and outright hyperpop banger of ‘Touch the Sun’, Bonito showed that she can equally pull punches as a standalone act, away from the outreach of her renowned group.
An invariably short set concluded before than blink of an eye, as the introverted hyperpop singer-songwriter disembarked the way she entered - leaving her yearning audience wanting more from a promising new act.
6.5/10
Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Electric Ballroom, London
“Things are just gonna get worse and keep on getting worse...”
The avant-garde post-rock legends produce a dystopian set, brutalising their audiences on a 3-night run in Camden.
The Borough of Camden may be littered with protestors cursing end of the world refrains, yet it was the legendary Canadian outfit, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which offered this sense of dystopia at their long-awaited set.
As if the interim period between their latest LP of 2021, G_d's Pee at State's End!, and now hadn’t offered enough dystopian news to us via every media outlet, the Canadian act eclipsed their set with a projection of nihilistic images entailing buildings crumbling, farmlands and crops dying, as well as the catastrophic impact of capitalist consumerism (and so on). When paired with the perfected syncopations, tempo alterations, crafted layerings enshrined into this act's folkloric repertoire, a certain spellbinding nature took place.
“Things are just gonna get worse and keep on getting worse”, announced an unidentified voice over the sound system, stricken by the terrifying imagery witnessed over the course of the evening - marking significant statements against the consumerist, climate-denying and colonial tropes encircling our geopolitical history. The sense of an inescapable doom from the grips of such a convincing act remained palpable for each audience member.
Enlisting a litany of monolithic instrumentation, from strings, keyboards, guitars and drums, the ensuing set transcended time, pronouncing its conclusion with the never-ending whirring refrain from 'BBF3' which droned for an eternity - suffocating us within the intimate Camden venue of their true mastery over the past two decades.
Exiting the venue from this show, I doubt many people would walk away feeling much the same as before - even against those on the streets who continue to plead their own dystopian readings of our current world.
8/10
Cryalot's latest EP, Icarus, is out now and can be found here.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor's latest LP, G_d's Pee at State's End!, is out now and can be found here.
Photos are courtesy of Magda Campagne and Brennan Bucannan and their work can be found at their respective hyperlinks.
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