A few weeks ago my good friend Tom Travis invited me on to his weekly radio show. It's UCL's student radio programme and I was impressed that we were allowed to play any music and swear on air, although I somehow managed to refrain! The music Tom picked was amazing, as it is every week. Considering we hadn't seen eachother in over a year, I think it went smoothly and it is something I would absolutely love to do again. Thank you Tom for having me!!
I accidentally went to see Salem the other day. My friends at Family Ltd raved about them, although had warned me that they were somewhat 'dark'. I thought I had a song by Salem on my lost iPod (R.I.P.) but after the first song I realised it was not the same band.
A droning synth begins and the band play a fairly harmless instrumental. However the mood changes by the second song, when a tall, blond man starts rapping at a little over 20 bmp. My initial inclination that he was a surfer dude was soon to be dispelled. Despite the slow pace, the only words I'm able to decipher from his drawl are something about '666' and 'bitches bleeding'. Now I love me a little offensive Lil' Wayne, but added to the beats it was definitely more sinister. By song four I realised that the free drinks weren't enough to keep me watching as I was alone and with each and every note change and new rap I was genuinely overcome with anxiety, so I went home.
However, just like so many things that initially freak me out, I couldn't stop thinking about them and decided to try and learn a bit more about the band. Could they really be this dark, or was it another Vice style gimmick? Well, here's what I learned. The band consists of two hot guys and the most miserable girl in the entire world all between 21 and 26. The sound is slightly more difficult to sum up. After researching the threesome a little more, I have seen it described as 'witch house', 'goth drag' and more worryingly 'rape gaze' amongst hundreds of other descriptions. To answer my queary as to whether or not they are really as tortured as their sound makes out; the overwhelming response from the few interviews they've given is yes. The two hot guys are gay, one from a middle class background turned to hard drugs and eventually gay prositution to fund his habbit. The others, social outcasts who all found solace in eachother and the probably the outlet to channel their feelings through the music.
After finding all this out, their music becomes slightly more therapeutic and even hopeful, as opposed to the panic-attack inducing band I'd seen days before. Although it took me hours of studying to reach this point (and I am never one to usually be swayed by a back story) for whatever reason I would actually see them again.
