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East India Youth, Black Honey and Kagoule perform for Fred Perry

29 September 2015, 12:00 | Written by Sarah Joy

Having conquered the British fashion market, tennis chic brand Fred Perry have in the last years turned their attention to championing home grown music with an on-going series of events at The Garage in London.

With carefully selected curators contributing to an entirely eclectic line up on rotation, recent monthly instalments of Sub Sonic Live have featured the likes of The Buzzcocks, Temples and Childhood to name but a few.

This month however the booking baton was passed to Blur drummer and XFM’s (or Radio X / ‘the boys only’ radio station as it is now known in some circles) Dave Rowntree, who pulled together two rising stars in young Nottingham rockers Kaguole and Brighton’s next big thing Black Honey, who played support to the now relatively old hat East India Youth.

As a DJ and tastemaker of new music, Rowntree clearly knows what’s going places with his support selection. Both Black Honey and Kagoule have been hailed in the next wave of guitar bands to come through the touring network, albeit both slightly more guitar focused than William Doyle or East India Youth as commonly called, who with his Mercury Music Prize nomination seamlessly weaves electronics over his sporadic guitars.

Flying back to the UK in between two dates in Germany, opening act Kagoule may have been feeling the pinch of travel, but you wouldn’t have known it if they hadn’t of divulged it to the audience. A young three piece of loose rifts and DIY attitude, their much-played single "Made of Concrete" took everyone on a “little journey”, as guitarist Cai Burns succinctly put it.

Black Honey in comparison were slightly more frantic with transfixing lead singer Izzy Bee twisting and kicking all over the stage throughout stand out track "Corrine". A fitting song all about a drunken bust up with a close friend, there is a distinctive impression she is confident and direct but at the same time playful. A blog triumph of the summer, they are destined for bigger things with their intense live performance.

Having last seen East India Youth play a headline show at the much larger Heaven across town, this was was a much more intimate affair all together. It's clear that as his project has evolved and garnered momentum, East India Youth has upped the ante. With his one-man wall of twisting experiential sounds, he has taken his sound to an even bigger magnitude. No doubt extensive touring has given him an opportunity to expand into more mainstream audience and the music reflects this with latest release "Beaming White" feeling more danceable than ever with its eurotrash-esque under beats and wavering distortion. Favourite "Total Strife Forever" was a return to the more underground as sinister pounding gave way to floaty moments. He jerks and moves in the same way as ever though, giving a chaotic insight into the innovative character behind the gloomy sonic landscapes.

With a collection of three very different, yet no wholly random acts, the mesh of guitars and solid deliveries made Fred Perry’s foray into music a branding exercise with not without substance.

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