Mercury Prize-winning, T2 Trainspotting soundtrack-contributing, virtuoso trio from Edinburgh, Young Fathers, took to the stage in Brixton earlier this week with an electrifying set – in every sense of the word.
Since their inception earlier this decade, critics have been rambling, arguing, and feuding in attempts to pinpoint the band’s sound: wildly ranging from descriptions of ‘alternative lo-fi R&B’to ‘melt throbbing dub and roots reggae’ with a ‘miasma of trip-hop production’. Yet somehow, these various musical elements were melded together brilliantly for a sold-out show involving an audience determined to dance against the harrowing prospects of the current Brexit negotiations.
Following on from their most commercially successful 3rd (and latest) LP, Cocoa Sugar, Young Fathers have at last garnered a significant enough following to produce two UK tours this year alone. Culminating in London, the band roped in the sounds of their entire discography into a tightly-knit 17-track set, thankfully, with no encore. Commencing the set was the twisted electronics and plodding, bass-driven drum beats of ‘Get Started’ – duly swimming in its gospel influences chanting ‘I’ll try and I’ll try / Cause my soul is malnourished / I’ll try and I’ll die’. In the frame of a more tribal tempo, these churning electronic sequences were strewn throughout the following half of the set with such tracks as ‘Wire’, ‘Queen Is Dead’, and ‘Feasting’. With one of the most impressive starts to any set I’ve seen, these particular tracks reigned infectious for every single audience member – compelled to groove and dance along to the West African polyrhythms in the very core of these tracks. Littered with sporadic fits of rage and vocal outbursts on stage, the atmosphere conjured inside this personally familiar venue was unlike anything I’d witnessed before.
The pinnacle of the evening’s set came about in the midst of this unrestrained concoction of emotions and musical tones. One of the most favoured tracks from their latest LP, ‘Toy’, retained this incessantly-high tempo for the crowd, ensuing its rubbery electronic refrain with bouts of screaming ‘Now you’re dead / You paid your debt / You’re playing dead / There’s no respect’. This volatile energy soon transcended into a decaying wall-of-sound fusing gnarling bass vibrations, cataclysmic drum tones, and varied vocal ranges from the trio on stage – ultimately provided a spine-tingling experience for myself. Reeling from this experience came another favoured track from Cocoa Sugar – the seismically groovy ‘Wow’. Personally, it’s beyond refreshing to witness an act effortlessly fusing together electronic musical tropes with polyrhythmic beats and an evident incorporation of gospel chanting which almost inevitably resulted in such vehement audience participation.
Surprisingly enough, many of my previously-favoured tracks from Young Fathers were ultimately the more disappointing ones amongst their live set. For someone who’d revelled in the past 45 minutes of upbeat, jolting dance vibes, the introduction of the slower-paced, R&B-tinged ‘I Heard’ and slightly more subdued tones of ‘In My View’ (a hit single from their latest LP) proved an awkward respite. Both tracks seemed lacking in their overall instrumentation and sampling – from the former’s sampling of ‘Corporate World‘, to the muddied vocal mixing of the latter track. This respite in the second half of the set may have been welcomed by some audience members, however, the comparison of the mesmeric dance-fuelled tracks with these particular ones made me constantly longing for the return of this former tempo.
Fortunately enough, the band’s gospel influences creeped further into the culmination of the set with ‘Only God Knows’ and ‘Lord’ exuding heavy-laden synth layers and wonderfully constructed backing vocals from sampled gospel choirs. The latter track, in particular, tranced upon the audience a gospel-esque, synth-driven sonic experience which seemingly nurtured a sort of spiritual inter-connectedness between the audience and those on stage. Wavy times.
This spiritual experience ultimately subsided to the final track and hit single ‘Shame’, from their 2nd LP White Men Are Black Men Too, with an upbeat tempo and shrills of vocalised “ooh”s bolstering the song’s catchiness. Perhaps the most apt song of their discography to end their set with, the lyrics implore in the listener to retain passion and hunger for life in spite of the banality which may seem to purge us. With the return of this buzzing bass refrain guiding the track, Young Fathers’ set proved that you can indeed let go of these common frustrations in life and live your best and most exuberant self – albeit for one night only.
Whilst I had my reservations on this particular act prior to their show, Young Fathers turned up with an arsenal of intricate sounds and breathtaking mixing on stage in their live format. Credit must be given to the lighting design for the show, albeit minimalistic, which allowed the 20-foot tall bed sheets surrounding the act to intriguingly illuminate each song with a variation of sequences and hues. In spite of some muddied mixing of the powerful three-way vocals on stage, undoubtedly not an easy feat, this act proved their worth to the crowd and all critics attending – from the dance-fuelled electronics, to the spiritually-healing gospel-flavoured tracks. Young Fathers have not only lived up to their potential since accruing the Mercury Prize in 2014, but surpassed it with flying colours – or maybe I’m just seeing some residual effects of the hallucinatory light show?
9/10
This review was courtesy of The VLM – the review can be found here. Young Fathers’ latest 3rd LP Cocoa Sugar is out now and can be found here. Tickets for their postponed UK dates in January can also be found here.
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