Sounds From the Ground: The Theatreship, London

Introducing our column ‘Sound From the Ground,’ an intimate insight into the ever-evolving, animated, and enigmatic independent music scene in London. This first edition addresses a performance at The Theatreship, the world’s largest floating arts centre, on the 12th October 2024.

I am incredibly fortunate to reside in a city of renown opportunity and potential.

London has always been bustling, from the hallowed markets of Shoreditch to the clogged, cobbled arteries that make up the spindling fleurettes of Covent Garden. There is always something going on. This, in fairness, can be perceived as a negative; the fingerless gloves of Dickensian pickpockets belong to figures that still linger, but they now ride rentable bicycles.

Nonetheless, I would like to reiterate – I am incredibly fortunate to reside in a city of renown opportunity and potential. Galleries line high streets. Boutiques and haberdasheries simmer on street corners. Buskers overstay their welcome. Theatres glisten at dusk like lighthouses to aspiring actors. Hecklers twitch in their seats at popular open mic nights. And what of the musicians? There is a superfluity of venues spattered throughout the capital, some beacons, adorned with gaudy neon signs: LIVE MUSIC DOWNSTAIRS, some obscured, rewarding those who seek ardently with gloriously unique evenings.

I am an independent musician, and one half of Idiotwin. I have spent a notable allotment of time in the year or so since the band’s inception scouring the capital for venues and building a network of contacts. I’m no expert, but I know the landscape fairly fluently. Perhaps in not being an expert, my opinion is more valuable, more authentic. I thought it could be an interesting concept to chronicle my experiences of gigging around London. Not only would it provide a detailed catalogue of honest experiences of different venues, but it could supply you with your next favourite hidden gem of an artist. London, like any other major city, boasts a colossal morass of independent creatives, and I have the joy of mingling amongst them. I can assert with confidence that there are a multiplicity of artists who sincerely warrant your attention. I hope this is a feature you find entertaining, if not informative. If you happen to inhabit a part of the world other than London, perhaps this can surmount to a travel advertisement. There is always something happening in London, and always a seat, or a space at a bar, that could accommodate someone of your stature and preferences exactly.

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Canary Wharf is a peculiar place. There are positives that I will gladly award it; it feels resoundingly safe, firstly. Strolling along the south dock, the faintest of breezes eddying about your face, rustling your hair, sailing by, curtailing, scarpering along the quayside, the dusk creeping in, a crepuscular twilight gripping the space that soon burgeons with the incandescent glimmerings of The Isle of Dogs, there is a pervading quietude. It’s almost an oasis – trouble may rear locally, but never transgress out to where you are. Secondly, it is spotless. There is no litter, no eyesore, nothing. A cynic may argue that there is an absence of such detritus on account of London’s bodies of water having swallowed it all, hence the murky complexion, but I would resent such a sentiment.

Despite all of this, I cannot shake the feeling that it’s all a bit… contrived? Canary Wharf is a corporate hive, its bees bustling about the plazas in throngs of organised chaos. Skyscrapers, which at night are glistening mirrorballs, are skulking husks come daylight. The cleanliness, the perceptible serenity – it feels like a veneer, like the silver-lining of a place where personality, no matter how earnest, or expensive the endeavour, will only ever be an affectation, never entirely true.

That being said, nestled into a cove along Canary Wharf’s South Quay, is The Theatreship, which is, as the name suggests, a boat. It is completely unassuming, minus the glowing ‘OPEN’ dazzling at its front. Traverse the few steps up, and then back down into the hold, to be met with something conceived by the set-designers from Doctor Who. The boat has been completely gutted, replaced firstly with a homely, wooden bar, before an entrancingly intimate and plush theatre space, the perfect size for a one or two-man show. The seating is orderly rowed, and bedecked in red velvet. Growls of wind billowing about the front of the boat break the suspension, but otherwise, The Theatreship has the remarkable quality of being entirely immersive. The humming chatter of a bar, or the bustling of a London square are distant clangours, buttressed between the shoulders of tube stations. The nature of the space, in that it resembles exactly a small theatre, demands hushed, piqued attention. To stir, to sip from a drink too loudly feels like transgression. What has been achieved is a secret oasis, an idyllic venue for folk performers, introspective songwriters, or any curator of a more intimate sonority to captivate a crowd without challenge, without rival, or without fear of being too hushed in contrast to a gig filled with roaring grunge or emo-violence.

And ultimately, that’s what the gig was: An oasis of music, against all reason, floating in an aperture at South Quay, undisturbed, hushed – five acts engrossing an unlikely theatre of eighty patrons or so, most respective friends and/or family, all intrigued.

setting up at The Theatreship © Frederick Bloy

Idiotwin were up first. I won’t dwell on them, because frankly I’m sick of them. They somehow seem to appear at every show I’m also due to perform at. It’s absurd, and, frankly, disconcerting. They were alright, I suppose.

Second onto the stage was Ashley B Red (@ashleybredmusicofficial). It is testament to the profound expanse of the London music scene that I can now say I have watched a horrorcore musician live. Accompanied by a lilting Scottish accent, and a laptop jettisoning spindly, eerie concoctions of backing tracks – amalgamations of twitching strings, snarling bass tremors and trap drum grooves – Ashley B Red weaves stories of dread, suspense, and burgeoning romances with serial killers. She herself professed throughout the set her passion for horror films (but even without the hints, such an assumption would have been readily available). Her set was capped with a proud rendition of Sia’s “Chandelier.”

Following a short interval, we were treated to Elfi (@elfi.music), joined on stage by her pianist Rob. I would not shun any individual who admitted they were distracted during this set, not for any flaw on Elfi’s part, but purely for the majesty of the singer’s footwear, a pair of scintillating, sparkling boots, bright enough to suffice as the funkiest of landing beacons. She possessed a stage-presence as phosphorescent, emitting an endearingly calm amiability throughout, regaling the audience with insights into singing in Dutch, versus singing in English, and the elusive nature of one of her song’s antagonists. Elfi is a songwriter of subtlety. Her strength, in my opinion, was her ability to handle low points, breaking to fractured whispers when appropriate. Her friend Rob only elevated her performance. He was tremendous – a thoroughly skilled instrumentalist in his own right, but with the detectable awareness and humility to operate as compliment to Elfi, not a competitor. He was a charmer, to ‘boot.’

Our penultimate act was Miss Kiki Foster (@misskikifoster). Immediately, she evoked a performer of the Amy Winehouse mould. Before even singing a note, her charisma was palpable. You sporadically are faced with artists that own a stage by simply exhaling across its surface – Miss Kiki Foster is one of those artists. She moved with complete liberty, but sang knowing people would listen. Her performance was one of power, of raw expression, and of irrepressible passion. Her effortless flitting between English and Spanish only made her set the more enchanting. Her songs were songs of rich vocals and of love unrequited, desired, and cherished. Her music was a party, a proposition to dance and to feel.

Finally, the show was closed with Rory Dinwoodie (@rorydinwoodiemusic). His set opened with washed-out, lamenting vocals, drowning beneath a torrent of pummeling, thrumming synth tones, the chosen preset of a keyboard (that any synth fan would find alluring) trembling, coalescing to form one great smoggy cluster chord. At this point, I was prepared for tinkering and electronic wizardry akin to Panda Bear, embellished with virtuosic ruptures along the keys, scales shimmering out of the haze, cascading into statement staccato chords, caesuras amongst billowing melanges of sound. But, without stutter, Rory finished his opening song, before picking up a dazzling azure guitar and relenting into gossamer fingerstyle tunes, and vocal melodies sometimes coaxing, sometimes pleading, sometimes bleating, a delay pedal vaulting falsetto cries deep into an abyss somewhere. He was mesmerising at times, delivering songs perfect for bouncing between the trees of a forest somewhere, shrouded in fog, sap slowly succumbing to frost.

The Theatreship is, in fact, a volunteer-coordinated venue. To me, that makes it an even more inspiring space, and does elevate the night of music into something even more remarkable.

I cannot adequately conjugate how pleased I was come the end of the show – it is, undeniably, one of the best showcases I have ever been involved in, and a true example, in all regards, of how unpredictable, but also how boundless independent music always proves to be. From ditties about Michael Myers, to dazzling boots, to Spanish R&B, to an enchanting synth, to a theatre buoyed in the Isle of Dogs.

There is not just always something unfathomable to discover, but new music to gorge upon, new artists to befriend, to become mainstays in playlists. This one will live forever in memory – I truly hope I can return to The Theatreship sooner, rather than later.

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