All 📸 by the wonderful mojojo.jojojo
Last Friday, Barry Can’t Swim curated a night which attested to the power of dance music as a form of blissful escapism. Barry Can’t Swim x Eat Your Own Ears: The lineup of artists whose music leans to the more joyful side of the electronic music spectrum was a dive into a cosy utopia of vibrant colours - an alternative reality unbothered by the chaos of the world outside.
In the Depot, local legend Tarzah had the job of opening up the night. Her percussion driven tracks kindly scooped you up and transported you away from the rainy world outside. It wasn’t hard to catch onto her groove and let yourself be taken along for this ride through the galaxies of excellent house, breaks and techno.
Following Tarzah was Salute, accompanied by TRUE MAGIC - a visual display intentionally created to be a ‘world you get lost in’. Their arrival on stage was announced by a glittery blue wave of warm synths that you could imagine emerging along some pristine shore somewhere. Wave crashes - and the playful rhythms that follow evoke images of a tropical paradise that you can’t help but want to surf through.
Salute’s music was infectiously bright and euphoric. The combination of music and visuals were an invitation to be dropped on a rooftop bar in a perpetually sunny universe where funky coloured tee-shirts are a uniform.
The crowd is now ready for the world of Barry Can’t Swim.
He can’t swim but he can certainly put on a show.
Accompanied by a full band - something incredibly captivating in a space designed more for machine made music, Barry’s performance coloured the paradise salute had taken us in with glitter and an extra coat of vibrant. Classics such as Sunsleeper, Kimbara and Dance of the Crab, with their bouncy rhythms, elastic synths and pitched-up vocals were joyful celebrations of warmer places.
The crowd was allowed to enjoy this sunny sonic paradise for the opening half of the set, before being hit with Barry’s more emotive tracks such as Can we still be friends and How it feels. Both tracks are a thoughtful combination of resonant vocal loops (You know I need you/I bet you never tell me how it feels) and melodies designed for nostalgia. As they played out across a packed warehouse, the crowd was suspended in deep blue of collective nostalgia. A brief break-beat workout brought us back to brighter shores, followed by Barry’s most recent bop, Still Riding.
Closing the night in the concourse was Palms Trax and Hunee. Both DJ’s delightful selection of house and disco kept crowds deep in the gorgeous world of the groove.
Overall, the night was a glorious homage to the joy of electronic music and how the escapism these events offer is a powerful remedy to the chaos we all seem to be living through.
As always, we will see you at the front ❤️
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