Rounding off a pretty full few days of gigs, I headed to The Lexington in London on Wednesday night for a shoegaze-centric, three-act billing.
The show was opened by Alex Jayne - a new name to me before I bought tickets to this show, but one I'm glad to have got to know. Her sound is perhaps slightly more melodic and less fuzzy than the other two acts on the bill, and she was a good choice of opener. She has a lovely voice - smooth, pure and mature, and deserving of the prominent placing it gets amid the band sound.
Her latest release is 'The Blue' and this one sounded particularly good live, shifting a little towards the rockier end of the spectrum. It's a sweeping, soaring song, very effectively living up to its title. Alex tried out some new material too, which it's definitely worth keeping an eye out for ('Kick Back' and 'Let's Be Friends').
Second on the bill was Lemondaze, a band I'd been wanting to see live for a while, and in fact the reason I spotted this gig in the first place. Listen to their recorded material and you'll quickly get lost in it. It's peak hypnotic 90s shoegaze brought right into the 2020s (check out 'Neon Ballroom', from 2019, for a great example).
Live, their sound was bathed in all the effects: swirly reverb, phasing, fuzz, with vocals pushed quite low in the mix. But it was lifted, too, thanks to the immense energy the band put in. The drums in particular pushed the performance forward much more than I'd expected, along with thrumming basslines (courtesy of Jonty), and euphorically thrashed guitar from both Isis and Rosie, who share vocal duties, too. This wasn't a laid-back ambient experience, but something much more exciting.
Their last song ended in a long outro, with Isis practically on the floor in rapturous shredding flow and finally using her guitar for the final cymbal crash. But then, as the band left the stage, each member hugged all the others in turn - one of the most wholesome stage exits ever.
It was only after I booked my ticket that I realised this was the launch show for headliner Dutch Mustard's outstanding new EP 'An Interpretation of Depersonalisation' (which I wrote briefly about last week). Sarah Jayne-Riedel, the person behind the project, has created something really wonderful with this band.
First of all. this performance made me smile, a lot. That was in part because of the wonderful sound coming from the full stage. Contributions from synths, lead guitarist (who had travelled over from Paris specially), drummer, bassist, and a rhythm guitarist, were combined with Sarah-Jayne's own guitar playing and confident vocals to create a really full soundscape. It was a very tight and coherent sound, too.
I also smiled because everyone on stage was - particularly Sarah-Jayne. It was great to see a huge grin on her face time and again, from start to finish; she seemed to be bathing in the sheer joy of performing her music to an appreciative audience. That emotional wave she was riding also came through in the impressive power of her voice and skilful handling of her guitar.
The songs from the new EP sounded great live, elevated to another level. This was another example of a band really making the most of the organic nature of live instrumentation and playing to and with the room. 'Don't You Worry' is built around a memorable vocal hook ("Lies, what do we do with them lies ..."), which is cleverly echoed in the various musical parts. The gritty bass line played live sounded even more filthy, vibrating through the floor, and the grungy lead guitar part was just awesome. 'Magnifique' (perhaps my favourite from the EP, for its darker sounding choice of chord progression) translated very well.
It was a great launch, and cemented this project as one to watch closely. Fantastic.
Date of gig: 2 March 2022
Alex Jayne on Spotify:
Lemondaze on Spotify:
Dutch Mustard on Spotify: