Songs of the year, number 1: Balraj Singh Samrai. Pandit G. Gavsborg. Farah Ahmad Khan. Shanique Marie. Tunde Adekoya. Vikaash. - I should have hugged you tighter when we last met (Oh what a joy)

Created as part of Opera North's Resonance programme, which is supported by the PRS foundation's Talent Development Partnership and is aimed at supporting UK based BAME musicians, 'I should have hugged you tighter when we last met' is the product of online collaboration during lockdown by the artists Balraj Singh Samrai, Pandit G, Gavsborg, Farah Ahmad Khan, Shanique Marie, Tunde Adekoya and Vikaash. It was premiered on Maryanne Hobbs' 6Music show back in August, and received a very deep emotional reaction from her audience. 

The brief was to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on music makers but 'I should have hugged you tighter when we last met' goes further than that, providing an insight into the ways in which the pandemic and debates around institutional racism collide. There is reference here to everything from the high Covid mortality rate for BAME patients, to Brexit, to #ClapForCarers and its counterpoint campaign #YouClapForMeNow. Like an audio diary come collage, this incredibly moving piece packs a powerful punch, and it will leave you feeling both devastated and moved. It will stay with you for a very long time afterwards. 

Songs of the year, number 2: Overcoats - The Fight (Official Audio)

Overcoats early 2020 album The Fight proved eerily prescient in a number of ways, particularly the song 'Fire and Fury', with its references to the sky falling in. But it's the title track 'The Fight' that really gets to the heart of the matter. In a US where people were struggling and constantly fighting to get their voices heard in innumerable campaigns and battles even before Covid-19,  'The Fight' speaks of a sense of weariness and determination in equal measure. "Put the beer down" it begins, "talk to me now." It's a campaigning, fighting song for 2020 that gives hope and solidarity in equal measure but that never, ever pretends its ever anything but hard. "The only time to start is now" they maintain towards the end of the song, and you can't help but agree. 

Songs of the year, number 3: People Club - Lay Down Your Weapons

Something of a dark horse in the running, People Club only formed in 2018. They are based in Berlin but hail from the UK, Australia, US and New Zealand. They met via the modern day equivalent of the musicians seeking ad: Social media. Inasmuch as I can tell, I think 'Lay Down Your Weapons' is their third single. It has a brooding synth-y wonky undertone that is overlaid with pure garage rock assertiveness: MC5 meets The Normal via early Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Apparently they're really into Motown, which is interesting as you'd put your money on Nuggets instead really, but it just goes to show you can't always tell. Previous singles have already created a media buzz and its easy to see why. Expect to hear much more of them in 2021. 

Songs of the year, number 4: Harkin - Dial It In

Leeds finest Katie Harkin took time out from her duties in the Sleater-Kinney touring lineup to release her debut solo album in early 2020. An impeccable slice of indie rock as exemplified by the crisp, taut perfection of 'Dial It In' and the surging drama of lead single 'Nothing The Night Can't Change' (it was a very close choice between the two for this list...), she looked set for a great year... I think she did manage to get some solo dates in before the live music world closed, but it can't have been many. At least she's left us with the record though, and the quiet determination and shimmering steeliness of 'Dial It In'. 

Songs of the year, number 5: Kali Uchis – i want war (BUT I NEED PEACE) lyric video

Released as part of the To Feel Alive EP, 'i want war (BUT I NEED PEACE)' was recorded in lockdown and released in April. Its irresistible chorus and modern lovers rock sensibility made it the perfect bedroom pop anthem for lockdown, and its sentiments were probably widely shared both at the time, and since. "I got needs" she maintains, yearningly, while also adding, in timely fashion, "Tik Tok you got me fed up." Both timeless and very, very 2020. 

Songs of the year, number 6: Jorja Smith - Rose Rouge

Originally recorded and released as part of the Blue Note Reimagined project, which saw the current crop of young UK jazz artists re-working some of the labels earlier hits alongside jazz favourites from elsewhere, Smith's gloriously expansive and soaring version of St Germain's 'Rose Rouge' gathered a new significance after the death of George Floyd in the US at the end of May. In early July Smith unveiled a video to accompany the track in which she collaged footage of #BlackLivesMatter protests across the UK and US alongside historic footage of civil rights marches in the 1960s. She also announced that she would be donating all proceeds from sales of the track to Kwanda.

Songs of the year, number 7: Noga Erez - VIEWS - live at inDnegev festival

The first of a trio of singles released by Erez in 2020, 'VIEWS' shows that she has lost none of her instincts when it comes to skewering internet trends and social media mores. Delivered in her characteristic rapid fire style, the glitchy electro beats perfectly set off her scathing critique of influencer culture. The promo video for the track depicted Erez and her various rivals climbing a seemingly endless Escher style staircase, pushing past each other and stepping over the fallen bodies of their rivals. It's worth watching for the ending, just as this live clip is worth watching to see her bossing it on stage. 

Songs of the year, number 8: Jess Williamson - Smoke (Official Video)

There's something undefinably urban about the music of Jess Williamson that makes it hard to place her directly in the country music bracket. She certainly has a twang to her music, but her work has shown flashes of Patti Smith and Angel Olsen, not Linda Ronstadt and Neko Case. 'Smoke' is a good case in point: It begins like a country take on the eternal Saturday night but by the end of the song the guitars are surging and we're heading fast towards alt rock territory. The first single from the Sorceress album, it set the scene well for what was to follow. 

Songs of the year, number 9: Future Islands - For Sure

The perfect summer slice of synth pop, 'For Sure' slid into my heart as surely and subtly as it slid into the 6Music playlist. It was futile to resist its charms. What struck me the most about the song, or the band more generally, was Samuel T Herring's voice. That very lived quality in his voice. There's a creak there, a vulnerability there that provides another aspect to the song, that makes it something harder, less light, less summery somehow. That gives it an air of mystery and discord you wouldn't expect. 

Songs of the year, number 10: Arlo Parks - Black Dog (Official Video)

At the heart of the success of 'Black Dog' is its simplicity of message and the pared down musical backdrop created for that message. At a time when a lot of people are talking about teenage mental health, it's refreshing to have such a powerful advocate as the young London songwriter. Her hugely anticipated debut album will be released in January, and - assuming it's possible - she will be touring in 2021. 

Songs of the year, number 11: Zoe Graham - Sleep Talking (Official Video)

Taken from Graham's Gradual Move E.P, 'Sleep Talking' is a slice of finely crafted folk tinged indie pop from a young Scottish artist who is only just coming into her powers. With a great hook and chorus, it is stylish and complex, moody and introspective, building on her acoustic work. Great things are to be expected of her in the next couple of years. 

Songs of the year, number 12: Fiona Apple - Heavy Balloon (Official Audio)

Fiona Apple's Fetch The Bolt Cutters caused a definite ripple of delight when it was released earlier this year. It might have just been amongst the people I follow on Twitter, but it was definitely delight. Aside from the homemade instrumentation and overall sense of musical innovation, what felt most obvious was Apple's sense of rage. It seems wrong to describe her rage as 'tethered' on 'Heavy Balloon', but it would also be fair to say that it's not the most furious song on the album, and that it is one of the more understated pieces. This doesn't diminish the song, far from it, in fact the sense of seething rage barely contained is one of its strengths. It's a difficult piece, from a difficult album, but it certainly does stay with you. 

Songs of the year, number 13: Florence + The Machine, Light Of Love

Originally written and recorded as part of the sessions for the fourth Florence + The Machine album, High As Hope, 'Light of Love' was a previously unreleased track that Florence Welch chose to release in April 2020 as a fundraiser for the Intensive Care Society, donating 100% of her royalties. 

In-keeping with the themes of High As Hope, 'Light of Love' is an unflinchingly honest ugly-beautiful slice of self examination, the brutal lyrics contrasted by the delicate baroque pop and choir like harmonies of the musical arrangement and orchestration. An unusual choice for a charity fundraiser, but one that - weirdly - seems to work. 

Songs of the year, number 14: Laura Marling - Strange Girl (Official Audio)

A breezy two fingered salute of a song, 'Strange Girl' feels like a return to Marling's English folk roots. Both sing alongable to and anthemic, 'Strange Girl' rolls along nicely and has a comforting message at its heart: Just be yourself. 

Songs of the year, number 15: Lucky Iris - Get Ready with Me

Earlier this year, I made a playlist called Her which was inspired by a number of songs that had (mainly) been released throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020 that I felt were embodying the spirit of #MeToo in song. 'Get Ready with Me' was one of the songs I included in that playlist. 

If Robyn's 'Dancing on my own' is the definitive sad banger, 'Get Ready with Me' has a claim to the title of 'best song about gender politics you can dance to'. It has the feel of Sophie Ellis Bextor at her sophisticated post disco slinky best, but its quiet sense of assertiveness and observational lyrics put it more in the same lyrical camp as Gaptooth's 'Ladykillers'. There's an effortless ease about the piece that means it carries itself lightly while not being light in subject, and that's an incredibly difficult feat to pull off. They haven't quite hit these heights again yet, but I live in hope that they will again. 

Songs of the year, number 16: Patricia Lalor - 13th of January [Official Visualiser]

Irish teenage singer/songwriter Patricia Lalor has been having a good year in some ways. Still very much a bedroom artist, she adapted to the at home gig with very little problem and has continued to release new songs in an increasingly prodigious fashion throughout the year. '13th of January' was a slice of wistful folk pop that she released early in 2020, in which she sounds wise beyond her years, conveying a real sense of loss that will chime with many this year. 

Songs of the year, number 17: Christine and the Queens - People, I've been sad (Lyrics Video)

The release of the La Vita Nuova EP came as a welcome surprise in the early days of 2020, and its lead track, 'People, I've been sad' seemed to capture something of the moody melancholy of the day. Sad but sophisticated synth pop being very much the order of the day circa March. It's an elegantly understated piece of complex moody pop that feels both very of this year but also capable of enduring beyond 2020. 

Songs of the year, number 18: MENTRIX - WALK

Berlin based, Iranian born artist Mentrix released her debut album earlier this year. As the video made to accompany 'Walk' demonstrated, her art is about both the visual and the musical. Her music stems from Sufism and traditional middle eastern percussion as much as european industrial noise, and there's a kind of brooding intent that is shown best by 'Walk' and it's accompanying video. Had the pandemic not happened, she would undoubtably have toured and her album might have received wider recognition. It is to be hoped that we hear more from her in 2021.

Songs of the year, number 19: Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink (Live at Moth Club)

The loping almost feline tension of this song sets the scene for the album of the same name. There's a definite tension between Shah, the artist returning to the area she grew up in, and the twitching curtains and small town gossip she sought to leave behind. It's very relatable, but it's by no way overdone, with the brooding tension of the music creating ballast and support for the highly observational lyrics. It feels more like a play or a short story than a song, the opposite of those kitchen sink dramas she namechecks in the early moments of the piece. Shah the performer is dialling it down in this song, but Shah the songwriter is at her sophisticated best. 

Songs of the year, number 20: Allie X - Susie Save Your Love ft. Mitski (Lyric Video)

The dreamy, blissful electro slink of 'Susie Save Your Love' is taken from my favourite album of the year, Cape God. It features Mitski and evokes fond memories of Prince and the Revolution as well as a time when we were allowed out to nightclubs and to have stupid drunken adventures afterwards. Those times will come again and, in the meantime, there's always Allie X, Mitski and Cape God. 

Songs of the year, number 21: Billie Eilish - No Time To Die

The unfortunately named 25th Bond film, No Time To Die, hasn't had much of a chance of a cinema life this year but its signature song has taken on a life of its own independent of the film. Which is something you could say of all the best Bond films but, given the kind of year 2020 has been, it's particularly impressive. Eilish provides a sophisticated slice of suitably brooding and atmospheric string infused minimalist pop that satisfies fans of her understated, slightly deadpan electro/acoustic pop as well as Bond song students. A perfect match. 

Songs of the year, number 22: Greentea Peng – Ghost Town

Released just before the first UK lockdown, this uncharacteristically political slice of brooding reggae and jazz infused anthemic pop has definite staying power. It was inspired by the continuing gentrification of London and depicts the demolishing of a community of high rise flats in Peng's neighbourhood. This isn't about progress she is saying, this is about homes and communities. And the destruction of those communities for the sake of profit. Like it's Specials namesake, it's a thought provoking piece that will endure long after the end of this year. As she says in the spoken word section of the piece, this isn't just about London. It's about all of us. 

Songs of the year, number 23: Phoebe Bridgers - Kyoto (Official Video)

Another slice of slightly scuffed indie rock, Phoebe Bridgers 'Kyoto' was another catchy tune that was much playlisted by BBC Radio 6Music in summer 2020. As an artist on a publicity trail that was curtailed by Covid-19, Bridgers had to get creative when it came to making the video for 'Kyoto' which is why there's so much green screen and landscape footage here. The song itself details the hectic mash up of touring life and personal life, something she'll certainly have been having an enforced break from this year. 

Songs of the year, number 24: JW Francis - New York (Official Music Video)

A big playlist favourite on BBC Radio 6Music this year, 'New York' was written by musician and New York tour guide JW Francis as an ode to his city. The resulting song is an all too brief slightly woozy slice of lo fi guitar rock that calls to mind both early Badly Drawn Boy and 'Cut Your Hair' era Pavement only with the underlying melancholy of Simon and Garfunkel. His debut album was released in October and he's apparently written shedloads of songs in lockdown so we can expect to hear from him in 2021. 

Songs of the year, number 25: Sarah Roston - Eu Incomodo (I Bother)

The title track from Roston's debut EP, 'Eu Incomodo (I Bother)' is good, fun, hedonistic Brazilian pop. Although this was her debut E.P, Roston is a seasoned performer, performing as part of an African dance company and as part of a pop big band orchestra too. As inspired by Beyoncé as she is by Brazilian pop, you can find out more about her here. 

The video to 'Eu Incomodo' caught the eye of Clash, who liked its mix of energy, musical styles and contrasting cultural and geographical faces of Brazil. This is not Bolsonaro's Brazil, this is something much more free, open minded and exuberant. 

And it's a damn good bop it has to be said. 

The big end of year roundup post

Hello and welcome to this years end of year roundup post! 

It goes without saying that 2020 has been a very weird and frequently upsetting year, and it is because of Covid that there's no gigs category in this years lists. When I looked back at last years list I realised that I didn't include a gigs list last year either,  but that this was due to the opposite problem: An abundance of riches rather than the desert of live there's been this year. 

I'd have to be more than optimistic to be thinking about what might or might not happen to live music in 2021, so I won't make any promises about a best gigs list for next year either. We will have to see. 

Hopefully you'll find some interesting things to listen to and read amongst what follows. As has been the case over the past couple of years, I will be running my songs of the year as individual blog posts counting down over the next few weeks, starting from tomorrow.

Albums of the year 

12) Half Waif, The Caretaker

11) Katy J Pearson, Return

10) Nadine Shah, Kitchen Sink

9) Emmy The Great, April / 月音

8) Laura Marling, Song For Our Daughter

7) North Americans, Roped In

6) Fiona Apple, Fetch The Bolt Cutters

5) Kelly Lee Owens, Inner Song

4) Jess Williamson, Sorceress

3) Overcoats, The Fight

2) Harkin, Harkin

1) Allie X, Cape God

12 books I've read and loved this year

Pierce, Tamora, Tortall and other lands

Hillis, Marjorie, Orchids on your budget

Ben Moor, More Trees To Climb

Davis, Caitlin, Bad Girls: a history of rebels and renegades

Collins, Bridget, The Binding

Fisher, Carrie, The Princess Diarist

Shafak, Elif, Black milk: on motherhood and writing

Rubenhold, Hallie, The Five: the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper

Peters, Ellis, Dead Man's Ransom

Haynes, Natalie, A Thousand Ships

Ribchester, Lucy, The Hourglass Factory

Banine, Days in the Caucasus

12 classic podcast serials and episodes from 2020

Podcasts have really come into their own this year, with audio production seemingly proving easier to finesse in a lockdown environment than audio-visual productions. As such, it goes without saying that there's been some really good podcasts this year, and that many of them have some kind of Covid related link. The BBC World Service's, Coronavirus Global Update was established in March 2020 with the specific intention of processing and distributing information about the pandemic, and while rarely included in lists of Covid podcasts, has been quietly punching above its weight ever since.

Similarly, the existing US design podcast 99% Invisible made some great pandemic related content this year, including their episode about China and East Asia's relationship with face masks ('Masking for a friend') and a delightfully quirky episode about the history of toilet paper in the form of their 'Wipe Out' episode.

Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast did a good summary of their print Covid coverage in their 'COVID-19' episode, while work podcast Is This Working? looked at redundancy and unemployment in their episode  'At risk: Our job loss stories'. Ideas podcast Reasons To Be Cheerful looked at a number of pandemic related issues throughout the year but their episode on the current parlous state of the music industry, 'Sweet streams aren't made of this', was particularly strong. 

Tech podcast Reply All devoted an episode to the QAnon conspiracy in 'Country of liars' [If you'd like to pair this with another good podcast covering a related story, you could do worse than listen to Page 94's episode 'US Election Fake News Special'] and the BBC ran a series, Two Minutes Past Nine, that looked at the long shadow of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The BBC also gave us the highly compelling investigative podcast series Girl Taken, which revisited a well reported case that emerged during the 2015 refugee crisis and revealed a very different picture to what was originally thought.  

At the more quirky end of history, new podcast We Are History gave us an episode on 'The British Invasion of Iceland 1940', which is well worth a listen. I can also heartily recommend the episode on the Suez Crisis, if only for the opportunity to hear one of the key political players being described as "Off his tits on amphetamines". I think that tells you what kind of history podcast you're dealing with. 

Film wise, there's been nothing to touch Best Pick this year, even on the episodes they had to record over Zoom from three different locations. Their episodes on  'The Apartment' and 'Tom Jones' were particularly fine. 

12 articles I've enjoyed this year [Non-Covid stories]

The Invisible Boy Who Became Mr Invincible (Aram Balakjian, Narratively)

The tragedy of the climate dildos (Emily Atkin, Heated)

The children with no voice, the women who spoke up for them and those in power who wouldn't listen (Jennifer Williams, Manchester Evening News)

My secret life tracking down debtors (Angela Lundberg, Narratively)

The pied piper is a victim of the gig economy (Sentimental Garbage)

The infinite heartbreak of loving Hong Kong (Wilfred Chan, The Nation)

Good Teens With Guns (Hengtee Lim (Snippets), Medium)

We Need To Rethink Our 'Pics Or It Didn't Happen' Approach To Activism (Yomi Adegoke, Vogue)

What Happened In Bethel, Ohio? (Anne Helen Petersen, Buzzfeed News)

Taiwanese laundry-modelling grandparents are surprise Instagram hit (Cindy Sui, BBC News)

Food for thought: Change, The Clash and clootie dumplings as Murray focuses on a reboot (Murray Chalmers, The Courier)

The Writers Who Want to Get Americans to Talk to Each Other Again (Julia Métraux, Narratively)

12 articles I've enjoyed this year [Covid stories]

Coronavirus: Miss England returning to her job as an NHS junior doctor (BBC News)

The coronavirus cruise: onboard the Diamond Princess (Joshua Hunt, 1843)

The last days of school (Charlotte Lastoweckyi, Charlottes World)

Where you're out of work makes all the difference in the world (Clio Chang, Vice)

'The way we get through this is together' The rise of mutual aid under coronavirus (Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian)

The Quarantined Hippies Trapped in a Jungle Paradise (Alden Wicker, Narratively)

The inside story of Britain's fight against covid-19 (Simon Akam, 1843)

How to be punk in a pandemic (Dawson Barrett, Waging Non Violence)

Tune in, drop out (Ann Babe, Rest Of World)

Stolen bodies, a conspiracy theory and riots that gripped Liverpool in the time of cholera (The Mill)

'By May I'd made over £1,000': teen entrepreneurs defy the Covid slump (Lily Canter, The Guardian)

The inside story of how students took on the University of Manchester - and won (Mollie Simpson, The Mill)

First picture by Denise Karis on Unsplash

Second picture by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

Third picture by Mehrnegar Dolatmand on Unsplash

Fourth photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash

Fifth photo by Pavel Nekoranec on Unsplash

Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 12 (November 2020)

Good morning and welcome to this months roundup of interesting news stories. I began this particular blogging project at the start of lockdown one as it became increasingly apparent that the floodgates had opened on rampant conspiracy theories, disinformation and all sorts of other related crap that was making it increasingly difficult to distinguish reliable news sources from partisan ones. I don't think I've been able to help rectify this problem in any way as it's clearly much, much bigger than me, and all I could really hope for is to create a small pocket of sanity on the internet. Let's hope media literacy gets added to the national curriculum sometime soon and that changes are made in the wild west of the internet to make it easier to find out who owns and controls websites, news publishers, newspapers and broadcasters. And what their various business and news agendas might be. With this in mind, please do read The Guardian's  account of an incident involving press photographers and London's Metropolitan Police in November. Journalists, including photographers, are classed as essential workers during Covid. Something that is regularly forgotten. 

There's been a lot of news about vaccines over the past month, and you might have been finding some of the information confusing, or just have felt a bit overwhelmed. There's also been an uptick in vaccination related conspiracy theories and misinformation too, which means Full Fact have had a busy month. I've tried to select a mixture of vaccine related stories that will help with all of this, so strap in and select those that pique your interest. 

Firstly, Full Fact can confirm that A Covid-19 vaccine is not being administered via Covid-19 nasal swab tests. Similarly, that the UK government is not proposing to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory. You can read their assessment of government plans to monitor Covid-19 vaccines for side effects here. You can read about Full Fact, and other stories they've fact checked, here. If you're not sure about how vaccines work, New Scientist's Sam Wong in his Science With Sam series does a good primer on YouTube. Perhaps the most quirky vaccine story this month though was the news that Dolly Parton had provided funding for the Moderna Covid-19 trial. 

In other Covid news, New Scientist provided an analysis of concerns about a new strain of the virus found in farmed mink in Denmark. Delayed Gratification published one of their longform slow journalism reports about the impact of India's first lockdown earlier this year and Wired have published a great, tech orientated analysis of how well Taiwan have handled Covid-19. City Monitor, the New Statesman's new urban site, published a great piece of data journalism last week which took a microscope to unemployment figures across the UK, and revealed some surprises. In New Mexico, the challenges of arranging school for children in remote and tech starved communities is given thoughtful treatment by The Independent. 

Another data orientated story, in some ways, is the exit of Dominic Cummings from Downing Street, which The Bureau of Investigative Journalism wrote about here. 

Following the spotlight on Manchester, and Andy Burnham, in October, Helen Pidd wrote a thoughtful profile of Greater Manchester's Metro Mayor for The Guardian. The Manchester Evening News did a thoughtful piece about the human cost of Covid via stories of local unemployment. In a similar Mancunian unemployment zone, The Meteor wrote about a retraining scheme that is helping unemployed theatre staff find work retrofitting homes to tackle the climate crisis. In other Greater Manchester news, there's to be a second phase of consultation, in the wake of Covid-19, as regards the fate of local buses. 

Despite the increasingly bleak midwinter economic outlook, there have been some good business stories recently, including the launch of a new online bookshop to rival Amazon, designed to help local independent bookshops. It sounds a bit like the Rough Trade cartel, only with bookshops. The Manchester Evening News wrote about the venture here. There's also a new UK start up making oat milk, and an ongoing scheme to recycle crisp packets into sleeping equipment for rough sleepers. 

The BBC provided a good longform look back at disability rights activism in the UK here. 1843 have some lessons in losing, CJR wrote about the Substackeri, Wired wrote of the broken dreams, and broken bodies, of would be e-sport stars, City Monitor wrote about an interesting housing campaign in Berlin, The Guardian reported that police are investigating claims that TV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here my have released non native species of insect into the Welsh countryside. Sticking with insects, there are some Very Hangry Caterpillars out there, and The Verge have a gently hilarious tale of an AI camera that fell in love with a football referees bald head after mistaking it for the ball at a football match. 

All images by me

Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 11 (October 2020)

I have over the past few months mused on the relevance of calling these monthly blog posts 'lockdown reads', given that the formal, UK wide, lockdown ended in June. Given that many of us were still under local lockdowns from June onwards (hello Leicester), it still seemed fair enough, and given that two of our four nations in the UK are once again under full Covid lockdowns, it feels even more relevant this month. I suspect that some of you will have slightly more time on your hands this week than you anticipated a month or so back and, if so, I hope you find something here to entertain and inform. 

We begin, inevitably, with COVID-19. The New Scientist did a good breakdown and analysis of the Imperial College study into excess deaths by country during the first wave earlier this year whereas The Guardian wrote a more cheerful piece about teenager entrepreneurs whose businesses and earnings have boomed during lockdown. 

Greater Manchester's ten council areas found themselves increasingly under the Covid spotlight in October, thanks to Mayor Andy Burnham's two week stand off with the Johnson government over funding for the introduction of Tier 3 measures here. This followed the introduction of Tier 3 measures in both Liverpool and Lancashire, both of whom received widely differing instructions on what could and couldn't stay open, as well as different financial packages. Lancashire went so far as to say that they felt they had been 'bullied and blackmailed' into accepting Tier 3 measures.

Given that Greater Manchester had already been under local lockdown since 31st July, with no financial package to mitigate the economic damage, it wasn't a surprise that October's announcement of new measures saw Burnham and council leaders decide to take a stand. The media fallout has been... interesting. 

Not only has Covid led to a bit of a crash course in geography for many of us (one of the more popular jokes doing the rounds in Greater Manchester back on 31st July was around Trafford having to finally accept it was geographically located in Greater Manchester, not Cheshire) it's created some weirdly iconic moments: That Civil Service Tweet, for example, the politicalisation of Barnard Castle, and - in October - the starring role of iconic Mancunian geographical backdrops such as Central Library and The Bridgewater Hall in Andy Burnham's increasingly exasperated press conferences. Helen Pidd, The Guardian's North of England Editor, also pointed to another unexpected phenomenon. The Manchester Evening News, meanwhile, wrote a suitably lively take on the whole standoff as it was continuing. They were also the first to write about that northern secession banner on Princess Parkway. New media startup The Mill have also been covering the standoff as it unfolded and last week they wrote about the ongoing financial destruction of the arts, and how it's playing out in a workshop in Ashton. In a broader sense, this World Economic Forum report offers detailed analysis of the future of work. 

In other Covid news, Imperial College London are starting vaccine trials in January, but the UK wide Covid tracking survey has gone really tits up in recent weeks. Oh, and Matt Hancock got his long Covid stats wrong. 

If September's Reply All episode on QAnon and the BBC's take on the build up to and long shadow of the Oklahoma City Bombing has whetted your appetite for reporting and analysis of conspiracy theorists, you might find The Mill's take on disinformation and panic during a cholera outbreak nearly 200 years ago a worryingly familiar read. See also EM Forster's The Machine Stops for the full dystopian take, if you've already binge watched that Netflix series inspired by Brave New World. 

Another big story this month has been the ongoing pantomime that is the US election, not so much partisanship as screaming civil war in the making. Into this chaos Narratively inserted a surprisingly positive take on the whole mess in the form of a story about Justine Lee and Tria Chang, co-founders of Make America Dinner again, in which they host dinner parties in order to facilitate civilised discourse between Americans of different opinions and from different walks of life. Feel free to revisit this one in the weeks to come.

Delivering food and friendship in a slightly different way on this side of the pond are FoodCycle, who featured in a piece on Wicked Leeks this month. Also Marcus Rashford, who hasn't forgotten what nearly happened with free school meals in the UK over the summer. In an innovative modern take on the historical practice of 'rough musicing', Tory MP's in Bury who voted against extending provision of free school meals to children over half term saw their constituency office decorated with paper plates and 'feed kids' signs last week. 

On the theme of poverty, the Manchester Evening News ran two harrowing homeless stories last week that both served to reveal the basic decentness of local humanity. In the first instance, a man took off his jeans and gave them to a homeless man outside a petrol station in Wythenshawe and multiple people have been trying to locate and help a distressed elderly woman found sleeping rough in Manchester. 

Ahead of Wales and Northern Ireland announcing their own 'Circuit Break' lockdowns, the New Scientist offered a calm discussion as to what exactly a circuit breaker lockdown might look like, and what the science says about them.

My Wales correspondent (ie my sister Jenni, who is reprising her role after a long absence) has been sending me reports on how the lockdown in Wales is going, including this hilarious protest over what does and doesn't constitute an 'essential' item. There was also a massive fuck up over sanitary towels in Tesco as well, which seems odd given pharmacies are allowed to stay open during lockdowns. The tone coming from the Welsh government seems to be that they're doing their best but that it's amazing how much potential their is for misinterpretation in the phrase 'essential items'. 

Over in Scotland, regular polling since March has indicated a strong preference for Scottish independence from the UK, which the New Statesman have written about this month. 

In lighter news, CNN reported that a giant ancient cat illustration has been found carved into a hillside in Peru. And finally, my current favourite headline of the year: Python tried to eat sleeping woman while being tracked by biologists. An honourable mention should also be given to Sky's baffling Brexit: Department for International Trade in soy sauce row after Great British Bake Off claim, which came courtesy of our Wales correspondent. 

Image of Thank you NHS and Key Workers banner pinned up by a basketball court in East Belfast by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Image of the River Irwell at sunset by by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

Image of child playing outside against a sunset by Sujeeth Potla on Unsplash

Pandemic pop music: Or, why Allie X's Cape God should be up there with Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia in the end of year lists

Earlier this year, probably not long after the UK went into lockdown, a number of well placed and well respected music journalists in the UK began to remark upon a specific 2020 music theme: Party albums for the pandemic age. 

Lady Gaga's Chromatica, a back-to-my-roots slice of hedonistic turbo charged pop which was released in late May, was one example of the emerging oevre, but the main release people referenced again and again was Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia, which was released on 27th March 2020, four days after the UK went into lockdown. 

Listening to Future Nostalgia, it's easy to see why so many critics fell for it: It's exuberant, assertive, confident and stylish in tone. It's also good hedonistic pop music, providing positive vibes and escapism at a time when people were, and still are, unable to go out to nightclubs and dance the night away. It arrived at the perfect moment. Not only was the album positively reviewed upon its release but it was also shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize and will, undoubtably, feature highly in many critics and publications end of year lists. 

I have listened to Future Nostalgia a few times now and, while I do quite like it, I didn't really get why it had been given such a rapturous reception.

That was until I listened to Canadian art pop star Allie X's 2020 album, Cape God. 

Like Future Nostalgia, Cape God provides a confident serving of stylish and hedonistic pop music. But its overall mood is decidedly darker, foreboding and off kilter. Which might account for it receiving less attention than the Dua Lipa album.

Cape God was released on February 21st 2020, pre a lot of the world's Covid lockdowns and before many countries had fully realised the extent to which they were going to be impacted by the virus and what kind of a year it was going to be.

An album with moody, dark imagery that also features X's trademark subversive lyrics (this is the woman who rhymed 'Casanova' with 'Fuck me over' on 'Casanova' after all) it is clever, complex, sophisticated pop with many a dance floor banger ('Super Duper Party People', 'Devil I Know', 'Rings A Bell', 'Life Of The Party') but which also wraps discordant, complex themes in ambitious synth pop ('Fresh Laundry') and addresses a series of atypical relationships and related difficulties. 'Love Me Wrong' for example, a collaboration with Trove Sivan, is a swirlingly off kilter slice of pop baroque whereas the slinky 'Susie Save Your Love' sings of wistful bisexual longing in a duet with Mitski. Musically the song  nods to mid 1980s Prince and the Revolution as well as the Lady Gaga and Florence Welch duet, 'Hey Girl'. 'Madame X' meanwhile, presumably in no way related to last years Madonna album of the same name, is a gothic ballad featuring a modern day La Belle Dame Sans Merci at its heart. 

Perhaps the most haunting track on this most atmospheric of albums is 'Life Of The Party' a song which, at face value, is a turbo charged banger set to rival anything on Chromatica or Future Nostalgia. Listen to the lyrics though and the story takes a distinctly darker turn:

I was the life was the life of the party

They stripped me down like a Barbie

They say I kissed the king

But I don't remember anything

The troubling nature of this is underscored at the apex of the song with X's blurred and groggy muttering of the following:

Oh I'll never forget

But I don't wanna forget

Hope I never forget

Oh I wanna forget

Oh I'll never forget

But I don't wanna forget

I hope I'll never forget

Oh I wanna forget

It hints at sexual assault while delivering unyielding pounding electro beats, something Noga Erez also did with 2017's 'Pretty', which was about a sexual assault in an Israeli nightclub. The contrast between content and style in both cases making for pretty disturbing listening. 

In its attention to cohesion and detail Cape God comes across as a loving and ambitious homage to electronica, art pop and the LGBT+ community. It feels both dark and joyous, troubling and euphoric, and it builds on Allie X's earlier work in a very satisfactory way.

She has surpassed herself with this album and that should really be acknowledged. 

Fantasy Festival 2020: Looking back and summing up

I knew from late May/early June that I was going to need to evaluate the Fantasy Festival project come October. With such a big, long term project, it seemed like a good idea to reflect on the process of compiling these 21 virtual clipfests, and what I've found out along the way. 

For one thing, as we drew closer to October I found myself asking: Was it a good idea to create a series of posts that would run all the way from late May until early October? Yes, it would ensure that the entire festival season was covered, but would people also get bored? 

Looking at my stats, I'd say that that has not proved to be the case: The viewing figures are much the same at the end of the series as they were at the beginning. There's been peaks and troughs along the way, and certain festivals do seem to have gone down better than others (for example Patti Smith and Anna Calvi) but, overall, it's been pretty consistent. Which is nice. 

I've been thinking about whether I should do another series next year and, at the moment, I'm not sure. It will depend a lot on where we are as a country (UK) with live music by May 2021. At the moment, I suspect that festivals probably won't happen in 2021 or, if they do, they will be very, very different. If that's the case, it might not be worth running a Fantasy Festival series in 2021. Not just because there might be less to get riled about without the typical slew of sausage fest lineups (though, since I started the series in May, Reading and Leeds festival have already proved true to form in that regard, announcing a very sausage-y lineup for 2021) but also because I suspect that live music clips on YouTube will be valued much more highly than they are now and, for that reason, may well be less available on a free to watch basis. We will see. 

I imagine at home gigs will still be a thing post Christmas, and I've used a number of at home/lockdown shows in this series, and they can be good. Even the low budget ones. Really, what I've found with at home or lockdown gigs is that it's the the spirit or the performance that counts, and also the intimate rapport that the artist is able to establish with those watching from home. It doesn't have to rely on really expensive kit, it can be done cheap and still be good. Both Basia Bulat and Patricia Lalor's lockdown streams proved this.

My starting point when compiling these virtual festivals has always been to create lineups made up of a range of artists who I, to varying degrees, like. This could mean an artist who I've heard one or more song by and who I quite like all the way through to an artist I really love. And all points in-between. The process of compiling the festivals, and then the watching of the one song clips and full sets when the post is published, give me a greater insight into the artist, their backstory, and their back catalogue. Some artists I end up liking the same as I did previously, some I like less, but many I end up liking more. This year, there were a number of artists who I only had a casual interest in previously who I now love intensely. Allie X and Zoe Graham being two of these artists. I also discovered a band I'd never heard before while looking for clips of another artist entirely, and promptly added them to one of the bills. A rare, joyful, example of the power of YouTube. 

The downside of YouTube is the impermanence of a lot of the content that gets posted on there. I do try to pick clips, and full sets, that look like they've been uploaded by people who might either own the content or have some clue about permissions or copyright, but even so, I still had a case of a one song clip being removed from YouTube after I'd embedded it and the post had gone live. Which is annoying. Similarly, one other video was deleted before it could be posted but, seeing as how the replacement clip I found was much, much better, this might have been a blessing in disguise. Oh, and a few videos I'd linked to (as opposed to embedded as the main clip in the post) got taken down in the time between me scheduling posts and them being published. Which made for a certain amount of re-editing after those posts had gone live. Again; annoying. 

There were, as was the case in 2017, issues as regards sourcing good quality clips and full sets by artists.  In the case of new artists this ongoing situation has (inevitably) been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: Many of those artists I couldn't get live clips for at all were poised to go on tour this summer, or earlier in the year, and not all of them were in a position to do lockdown gigs from home. 

As regards new or emerging artists, one really good source of high quality footage turned out to be the BBC, specifically their Introducing project. Because the big UK festivals (and some of the medium and smaller sized ones too) have BBC Introducing stages at which new UK artists are booked to play, there was a large recent archive of one song clips posted by the BBC on YouTube that I could use.

I relied on these clips a lot and, while I was very pleased to discover this archive, the BBC Introducing footage came with its own set of problems. It's not that the full sets (if there were full sets available for those artists) were only available on BBC Sounds, it's more a combination of other factors.

Firstly, a number of new and emerging artists, while perfectly good on small stages in pubs and clubs, come across as gauche and over exposed when placed on a much larger stage at a festival. Even if it's the new artists stage. This can make for some pretty un-dynamic footage. Perhaps recognising that this can be the case, the BBC Introducing footage quite often concentrates on catching an overall mood and vibe by including lots of footage of the crowd responding to the artists, rather than lots of close ups of the artist performing. This can have mixed results: If the artist isn't going down well with the crowd, it tends to be obvious and make for painful viewing. If the artist is playing an absolute blinder but the video edit still includes loads of crowd footage, it can detract from the artist's performance. If you watch Koffee's one song clip from the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2019, then watch her full length set from Rockpalast in 2019, you'll see what I mean. A good example of a great clip by the BBC Introducing film team is Self Esteem's one song clip of 'Girl Crush' from Glastonbury 2019 where, perhaps recognising that Rebecca Lucy Taylor isn't a total newbie and has an ease and confidence on stage that needs showcasing, they did focus on the performance over the crowd.

In general, I relied on far more BBC clips than I'd previously anticipated. This was particularly the case for festival clips from 2019 and 2020, by which time the issue of a lack of women being booked for festivals was definitely being discussed in a big way and (some) festivals were seeking to show themselves willing to book more women. As such, this seasons Fantasy Festivals did include a surprisingly large amount of one song clips from Glastonbury 2019 and the BBC 6Music Festival 2020, which managed to sneak in ahead of the main festival season in March, just before UK lockdown. 

As in 2017, this years Fantasy Festival's have been very dependent upon content sourced from live studio sessions, particularly those recorded for public radio stations and platforms in the US. I have been very grateful to the work done by KEXP, The Current, Paste and Audiotree when it comes to showcasing a mixture of new, emerging and established artists in a variety of live contexts from a variety of nations. Despite the studio settings, many of those sessions are amazing. Good examples would include Ibeyi and Miya Folick's live sessions, both for KEXP. 

On the downside, there are still artists where - despite their profile - it's been nay on impossible to source high quality live clips or full sets. Specific examples would include Stevie Nicks and Emmy The Great, albeit for very different reasons.

Compared to the Fantasy Festivals I created in 2017, I've sourced my clips and full sets from a much wider range of festivals (despite the predominance of both BBC UK festival footage and KEXP live sessions) and also a much wider set of geographical locations, which is great. I am now aware of inDnegev festival in Israel, TRNSMT in Scotland, the various different geographical locations used by Pitchfork Festival (France, Spain, US...), and Hodgepodge Superfest in Indonesia. 

Festivals in European countries beyond the UK need a special shout out too because I did include a lot of artists from the Scandinavian countries this year, as well as sets from non Scandinavian artists who just happened to be playing at festivals in Europe. I'm especially grateful to Roskilde Festival (Denmark), Gurten Festival (Switzerland), Rock Werchter (Belgium), Open'er Festival (Poland), and Ruisrock Festival (Finland).

I've really taken a kind of delight in some of the random locations and contexts I've found artist clips in this year. The odder the situation or context, the more interesting the final result in many cases. This has included watching The Raincoats perform a full set as part of an art exhibition, Sampa The Great performing 'Final Form' at what looked like a neighbourhood party in Brisbane, Lily and Madeleine performing to an audience of commuters on a bus in (I think) Indiana, Half Waif performing 'Keep It Out' to an audience of campers at a US summer camp, and Liines performing to a duffel coated (and very cold looking) audience at an outdoor gig in Munich. Not to mention the typically surreal spectacle of both Press Club and Mallrat performing on TV in their native Australia.

Because the festival season was swept away by the COVID-19 pandemic this year, any impact the Fantasy Festival series might have had in an activism context is pretty much null and void. I will finish by saying that I may have been unintentionally ahead of the curve in 2017 when I compiled the first Fantasy Festival series: In summer 2020, the BBC constantly referred to it's own curated (I don't curate: I compile) series of 'Fantasy Festivals' on BBC Sounds, scheduled to coincide with the weekends that they would usually be broadcasting live from Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds festivals. I don't claim copyright on the phrase, but their use of it did amuse me. 

Lady Gaga - Million Reasons (Live At Royal Variety Performance)

Because Lady Gaga released her most recent album, Chromatica, during lockdown, she hasn't really begun to promote it as yet. What live performances there have been have taken place over video conferencing software from home. As such, I'm turning to performances from the Joanne era as they seem more apt. This Royal Variety Performance was a surprisingly demure one by Gaga, but it's a powerful one in which she is possibly channelling her inner Bassey. In direct contrast to, there's a live film of the Dive Bar tour she did to promote 2016's Joanne album, which you can watch here.

Kelsea Ballerini - Homecoming Queen (Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park 2019)

I haven't been able to find a full live set by Kelsea on YouTube, so here she is performing 'Miss Me More' with Halsey at CMT Crossroads earlier this year. It is well worth watching.

Aurora - Running With The Wolves (Live at Gurten Festival)

This is AURORA performing 'Running With The Wolves' live at Gurton Festival in 2018. It is possible to find her full Glastonbury 2019 set here, but I don't think the BBC know it's up on YouTube so, just in case it gets taken down, here's her set from KEXP at Kex Hostel in Reykjavik in 2019.

Kelly Lee Owens - Lucid (Live on KEXP)

You can watch the rest of Kelly's KEXP session here

Natasha Kmeto - “Pour Down”

You can watch the whole of this set as a playlist of separate videos on YouTube here.

Starcrawler 'I Love LA'

You can watch Starcrawler's full gig for The Current at SXSW in 2018 here.

HURLEY LIVE SESSIONS: THE PARANOYDS PLAY 'FACE FIRST'

You can watch The Paranoyds live set for Paste Studios in January 2019 here. The interplay between band and presenter at the beginning is very quiet, but the sound is much better once the band begin playing.

Liz Lawrence - None Of My Friends (The BME Sessions)

This is Liz Lawrence performing the timely 'None of my friends' for BBC Introducing in 2019. You can watch part of Liz's live set at Banquet Records in 2019 here.

Fantasy Festival number 21: The Lineup

Liz Lawrence: Liz Lawrence released her second album of indie rock, Pity Party, last year. It featured the understated observational deadpan of 'None of my friends are OK'. She was touring earlier this year, and it's to be expected that she may well have dates planned for the future, circumstances permitting. You can find her on Insta.

The Paranoyds: Achingly cool LA punk pop band The Paranoyds have been around for a few years now. Their debut album, Carnage Bargain, was released last year. You can find them on Bandcamp.

Starcrawler: The outrageous LA garage punk band are fronted by Arrow De Wilde, the feral lovechild of Iggy Pop and Cherie Curie. They have released two albums of stomping punk classics, are terrifying live, and you can find out more here.

Natasha Kmeto: This Portland based multi instrumentalist, producer and singer makes evocative, clever, sexy feel good electronic music. You can find her on Bandcamp.

Kelly Lee Owens: "Convention-blurring techno producer/musician" is what it says on her Bandcamp, and you can't really argue with that. Her self titled, self released debut album was released in 2017 when she was still living in Wales, and quickly became both a critical and word of mouth success. Since then it seems like everybody wants to work with her. Her second album is, it is fair to say, very keenly anticipated. You can find her on Bandcamp.

AURORA: Norwegian singer, songwriter and producer Aurora has released three highly conceptual albums of electro art pop. You can find out more here.

Kelsea Ballerini: Tennessee country pop singer and songwriter Kelsea Ballerini has released three albums of country flavoured pop and cites Shania Twain as her greatest influence. As an artist who has grown up with pop crossover artists such as Twain and Taylor Swift, it's not surprising that she is able to straddle the pop and country worlds with such ease. You can find out more here.

Lady Gaga: The phenomenon that is Lady Gaga was born Stefani Germanotta in New York in 1986. She is a singer, songwriter and producer. 2008's aptly titled debut album The Fame was her breakthrough moment, and it's been non stop ever since for her. Musically, she remains a dance and pop orientated artist but, over the years, she has taken inspirations from metal, country and Americana, and even made a brief foray into the easy listening world with her Tony Bennett collaboration, Cheek to Cheek. "Do you want to be the next Madonna?" she was asked once "No" she replied "I want to be the next Iron Maiden". You can find out more here.

Fantasy Festival number 21

Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 10 (September 2020)

Hello and welcome to this month's journalism roundup. It does feel as though the phrase 'lockdown reads' is still contemporary so I'm going to stick with it for now even though I know not everyone in the UK is under a local lockdown. It just feels like we are.

We begin this month's summary with the economy, and a shrewd piece of economic and policy analysis conducted by the New Statesman. They predicted at the beginning of September that the UK is sleepwalking into a jobs crisis. I suspect that their feelings on the matter haven't changed much since. 

Another sign of what might be ahead of us, economy and employment wise, was this surprisingly poignant tech story from Bloomberg, which revealed a trick Amazon delivery drivers are deploying to score more gig work. 

In other driver related news, The Guardian ran this devastating piece about the life and death of Mervyn 'Mally' Kennedy, and the fight by his fellow London bus drivers to get the protection they needed from COVID-19 earlier this year.

While no one could really be said to be having a 'good' pandemic, this piece from The Conversation reveals some good news about Covid inspired innovations in Vietnam over the past six months. 

Resident Adviser ran a thoughtful photo essay on Beirut's nightclub scene, post August's blast, and The Cut ran another of their much talked about, thought provoking personal essays this month. This time by model Emily Ratajkowski, concerning her fight to own her own image. 

Using humour to talk about a serious topic, 1843 magazine provided a guide to conspiracy theory slang. In a loosely related, much darker, note the recent BBC podcast series Two Minutes Past Nine looks at the long shadow on American life and culture cast by the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 and is well worth a listen. 

New Manchester media startup The Mill began strong last month with this penetrating analysis of why Rebecca Long-Bailey failed to become Labour leader. They also got the inside take on Manchester Metropolitan University's controversial student lockdown. You can subscribe to them for free or subscribe to a paid membership in order to help keep them going. Details and the end of each article. 

Until next month. Stay safe. 

Photo of autumn leaves by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

Bikini Kill with Joan Jett, “Rebel Girl”

Featuring a guest appearance from Joan Jett, this live clip of the newly reformed Bikini Kill performing 'Rebel Girl' in 2019 is good quality, albeit filmed from slightly afar. It's still well worth watching though. Full length sets, either from the 1990s or from 2019, are hard to come by and the only one I could find was so wobbly it made me feel queasy watching it. For an inkling of the 1992 live experience, you can watch this clip of 'Rebel Girl' live at an outdoor rally in Washington DC here. A slightly less grainy version of the same footage appears in The Punk Singer. There's a lot of Bikini Kill footage up on YouTube, including some very atmospheric stuff from 2019, but it helps if you've a high tolerance for wobbly camerawork or people's heads getting in the way. If you're fine with that, go hunting.

The Raincoats - The Void, Live at the MOMA.

This is The Raincoats performing 'The Void' live at MOMA in 2009. You can watch a full set of the band performing as part of Dan Graham's Stage Set for Music at the Lisson Gallery in London in 2018 here.

Big Joanie - It's You (SXSW 2019)

This is Big Joanie playing at SXSW for BBC Introducing in 2019. You can watch their full live show for KEXP (on a foray to London) here.

Dream Nails - DIY (Live at The Victoria, London - 26 July 2018)

This highly atmospheric live clip of Dream Nails was recorded at The Victoria in London on 26th July 2018. You can watch footage of their set at London's Shacklewell Arms in 2018 here.

Be Here [Live] | LIINES | Theatron Pfingstfestival Munich

This live footage of Liines playing 'Be Here' live at Theatron Pfingstfestival in Munich is basically the only bit of footage of the band on YouTube that wasn't filmed on someone's phone. Luckily, it's also pretty damn good. Liines' Zoe McVeigh has been recording some live tracks in lockdown, including this very strong version of PJ Harvey's 'A Place Called Home', and the band have made a YouTube playlist of clips of them filmed on members of the audience's phones, which (if you fancy a deep dive) you can watch here.

Interview and live music with MS MOHAMMED at LOUD WOMAN FEST

There isn't an awful lot of video of Ms Mohammed on YouTube, especially live video. The live sections of this particular video are a little bit muffled, sound quality wise, but it's enough to give you an idea of how good she is. In a similar vein, Ms Mohammed also did a talk for TEDX London in 2019, on the theme of authenticity over assimilation, and she and played two songs as part of that. You can watch the TEDX London talk here.

Gaptooth live at The Dublin Castle, 8 December 2012

This brief clip of Gaptooth performing at The Dublin Castle in 2012 is the only live footage of Gaptooth on YouTube, and while it's a bit scrappy, it gives you an idea of her sound. You can subscribe to her YouTube channel here.