A NIGHT AT THE WINDMILL: THE MONOPHONICS AND THE EXTENDED FAMILY OF SPEEDY WUNDERGROUND
A recap of an exciting night at The Windmill in Brixton, featuring promising new acts DEWEY, Automotion and Honeyglaze - and an introduction to the new supergroup made up of members of some of our favourite bands, The Monophonics.
On Friday the 17th September, the Windmill hosted a night which welcomed a diverse selection of talent, from the up and coming DEWEY to a supergroup featuring DEWEY herself, Speedy Wundergrounds’ own Dan Carey, Fontaines DC’s Tom and Conor, and Goat Girl’s Lottie. With all members wielding only one string on their instruments, they cleverly boast the name The Monophonics. The lineup on the night also included newcomers Honeyglaze and Automotion; it almost felt like every performance was a premier, and no one fell short.
The night opened with DEWEY, who single handedly delivered a complex and flawless performance of some great tracks from her EP ‘Soller, Pt. One’ and the following ‘Pt. Two’. Throughout the performance we became progressively more impressed with the quality and consistency of her live vocal, as well as her capability to run so many things on stage at once so smoothly. Following DEWEY came Automotion, again an up and coming act whose name is starting to pop up in indie venues across London, including The Old Blue Last and The 100 Club. The four-piece band released their first EP in June this year and delivered a moody performance of their tracks. Many of them felt like a collage of different songs with many different turning points, but they all maintained one overarching experimental, post-punk/rock energy, embellished with spoken word-like vocals.
Honeyglaze were next to play, having only just released their first single ‘Burglar’ earlier this month. Despite this, their performance was coherent and very enjoyable, even though I hadn't heard the majority of the tracks before. The set was nothing short of dreamy and carried a bit of character and humour, with one playful track centering around ruining your hair with bleach. Honeyglaze have recently announced their signing with Speedy Wunderground, and, similar to Automotion, are also starting to appear on lineups across indie venues such as The Lexington and The 100 Club. Through a combination of their great releases, the accumulation of a live audience, and their affiliation with Speedy Wunderground, both acts are sure to be on the rise.
The night was closed by the intriguing headlining project, The Monophonics. The set was jokingly opened by Carey: “this is our last song”, before going on to play continuously for around 30 minutes, flowing in and out of different compositions. I had heard the act described by DEWEY as “chaos” earlier in the night, but to me it seemed the furthest thing from it; everyone appeared so comfortable on stage and seemed to trust each other fully. Despite all the instruments only having one string, the performance felt so full, and Lottie — who acted as the vocalist for the group — came on stage intermittently; the rest of the time was purely instrumental, which was just as impressive. A lot of the people on stage had already worked together in the past - for example, Carey has produced for both Goat Girl and Fontaines DC. This existing relationship, and probably a lot of discussion and rehearsal resulted in an air of confidence during the set. There was never a moment that felt flustered, they all looked relaxed and were just enjoying playing, which helped me enjoy it even more than I was already.
Image Credit: Holly Whittaker
If you’re ever able to see any of these acts live - I urge you to! We weren't disappointed and it was a pleasure seeing them all on the same night. In the meantime we can wait and see what will be coming next for all of them - because whatever it is, it’s bound to be exciting.
