Mermaid Chunky, TURNSPIT and Another Country $$$$ at The White Hotel
Johnny James, Managing EditorBook now
Mermaid Chunky, TURNSPIT and Another Country $$$$
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
Mermaid Chunky, TURNSPIT and Another Country $$$$ are three duos with three very different musical styles, but something more fundamental connects them. They’re all tapping into a nascent sensibility among emerging electronic artists; simply, they’re bored to tears of pristine laptop sets.
Freya Tate and Moina Moin have had quite a ride. The Gloucestershire duo, who perform as Mermaid Chunky, landed their debut album slif slaf slof on DFA Records after James Murphy heard one of their tracks playing in a coffee shop and became immediately obsessed. The record deserved the attention: folk, house and psych-pop rammed together, with Tate’s chants rubbing against Moin’s yearning sax lines. Live, the pair perform in elaborate handmade costumes amid sculptural visuals, and the whole thing operates on its own delirious internal logic.
Supporting are Leeds duo TURNSPIT – George Barwick and Jess Clark – whose self-produced singles inhabit a Lynchian nocturnal space: arpeggiated synths, choral vocals, beauty with something rotten underneath. Live, they move between moments of intimate electronica and high-energy club intensity.
Completing the bill are Manchester’s Another Country $$$$ – Sam Shorter and Oli Knight – who are as embedded in The White Hotel’s community as any act. Their debut EP Cursed Frame, out earlier this year on Spinny Nights, is a whirligig of breakbeat, post-rock, hyperpop and classical fragments, delivered with live drums and projected visuals. It was made in direct response to what a night at this venue feels like. This night’s its own little homecoming.
