Seafoal, Connor O' Rourke, Apollo and Figure 0.9. Live at Subside review (7/11/17)

While his old band Crime and Punishment 2011 may be nearing its end Dan Carter aka Figure 0.9 (7/10) is already off to a flying start, with his début album Casket having come out in September. While Crime and punishment 2011 shows were notable for Dan jumping about the place and getting right in people's faces. Dan now stands rapping his heart out on centre stage. 'Casket' is the start of Dan taking his song-writing in a more meaningful direction, with CPK's beat maker Pink Violence providing a dark industrial tinged grime backdrop for his bars. The show made for a reunion of sorts as his former band mate Zero joined him for reflecting. The finale of this opening set was 'Casket'. Which his own emotionally charged interpretation of Placebo's 'follow the cops' back home', before Dan left so 'people with instruments can take to the stage'.
Apollo (7.2) is a unique artist. His set found him playing as a one man band with only his vocals, violin and an electric drum machine/sampler for all of his songs. While his gothic take on electronica may seem very experimental in style. He has a knack for turning his sparse production and introspective lyrics into memorable pop songs. His violin adds character to a lot of these songs, when he's not combining it with his sampler to create a beautiful cacophony of noise. 
Connor O' Rourke (5.2) seemed a bit like the odd one out for this show, being the only acoustic artist on a line up of dark electronic acts. He seemed aware of this, making many self deprecating jokes throughout his set. His pastoral folk songs reminded me of Bon Iver at his most heartbroken and passionate.

The thing that confused me about Seafoal (7.6) is that at first I had no idea how her dark gothic electronica is made. The synth tones seemingly coming out of nowhere until I realised that there was a backing track coming from somewhere. While cuts from her latest EP 'Xeraclius' were obvious highlights, there are two sides to Seafoal. One is the pint sized 'fake trans' punk who makes dark gothic electronica. The other is an acoustic singer-songwriter. Her cover of Linkin Park's 'Numb' was a heartfelt tribute to the late Chester Bennington. The subtleties of this and her own acoustic songs 'Soulsick' and 'Van Gogh' (she hates it less played acoustically) were sadly a bit lost over the relentless chatter of the Subside crowd. After the acoustic section it was back to her current sound. Seafoal has a great band to back her songs with and an amazing sense of style. A small following of devotees wearing her beanies is proof that with each of these shows she is winning more people over.

links
https://figure09.bandcamp.com/album/casket-based-on-a-true-story
https://apollllo.com/
www.facebook.com/pg/conoracoustic
https://www.facebook.com/seafoal/