BLIND YEO + PAINTING + Secret Guest @ McChuills, Glasgow - Fri 13th December 2024

BLIND YEO

Led by Will Greenham, Blind Yeo features a shifting cast of members which at present includes Henry Greenham, Sam Pert, Anoushka Helm, Jake Sheridan, Phil Self, Phyllida Bluemel and Dan Gilbert. The project began in the quiet and solitude of lockdown, before coming alive in a creatively explosive residency at the newly opened Cornish Bank in 2022 – a vibrant not-for-profit community arts space in the centre of Falmouth which has become the heart of a thriving underground Cornish scene of which Blind Yeo are very much a part. The band has since grown into a psychedelic carnival of sound best experienced live, as their memorable sets at festivals including Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug in Edinburgh and Great Estate and Tropical Pressure in Cornwall have proved.
 
Blind Yeo self-released their debut EP Echoes in April 2023, with tracks receiving plays from NTS, Soho Radio and BBC Introducing. It was followed in May 2024 by their Lost Map debut single ‘Otherside’ – a six-and-a-half-minute blur of motorik beats, rave synths and jagged electric guitar runs which received support from BBC 6 Music’s New Music Fix. Blind Yeo’s second EP Anam Cara was recorded last summer in bassist Jake Sheridan’s cob house, off-grid, solar powered studio hidden in woodland just off the north coast of Cornwall. Instead of putting it out as a purely standalone release, they’ve decided to pair it up with Echoes to create a revealing document of the band’s first two years together, and the thrilling journey of discovery they’ve been on to date – a journey that shows no time of stopping anytime soon.

PAINTING

Hailed as “the greatest new band in the German pop avant-garde” by Rolling Stone, Painting are Theresa Stroetges (vocals, bass, guitar, synthesiser), Christian Hohenbild (vocals, drums, electronics) and Sophia Trollmann (vocals, saxophone, synthesiser). Stroetges and Hohenbild previously performed together in the band Soft Grid, while Trollmann contributed saxophone to one of Stroetges’s solo albums under her Golden Diskó Ship moniker. Formed in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, they have an unconventional setup which sees all three members share vocals (with Stroetges most often taking the lead) as well as swap instruments frequently.

Drawing on a expansive and explosive palette ranging from experimental rock and electronic avant-garde sounds to leftfield pop and jazz, Painting Is Dead is a constantly shifting and refreshing kaleidoscope of sounds that feels like its fighting to escape the rigid confines of conventional songcraft. That struggle is mirrored in the songs’ themes, and lyrics pushing back against the binary forces that shape the lives of women and especially queer bodies in patriarchal society.