As usual, Latitude 30 was home to some up and coming UK acts. Here’s a look at two of them
It only took a few minutes for me to realize how much more talented William Doyle aka East India Youth (pictured above) was then I. Playing only by himself on stage, Doyle went used laptop, synthesizer, played bass AND sang during the course of his all too brief set. Doyle is an intense performer and his energy created for a tense session with the crowd as it was becoming increasingly clear that one of his many gadgets on stage was failing him and you can see that he wanted to destroy it. Alas, it was SXSW and who knows if you can rent another one if you break your music gadget on the first night. Still, his layered electronics sound was impressive. Doyle’s vocals are so good I feel like he can just be a successful singer if he wanted, but in some sort of mad genius rage, he instead uses his voice as merely one of the many tools in his arsenal, and I am more then fine with that.
Shura is another UK artist on the cusp. Lead singer Aleksandra Denton’s vocals and sound reminds me of smooth early 90’s pop music which then reminded me of Jessie Ware. Denton doesn’t have the charm that oozes off Jessie Ware (she’s one of a kind), but her music holds strong promise. There was actually a funny moment where Denton referred to SXSW as the Hunger Games and then held up her hand with three fingers which I assumed was some sort of Hunger Games thing. Actually, now that I am reading her wikipedia page, it says she produced Jessie Ware’s Say You Love Me, which makes perfect sense to what I just wrote. Either way, I can use more good pop tracks in my life given the amount of crap that’s produced for top 40 these days, so put me on the Shura bandwagon.