A bass-driven whirlpool of keys and shooting electronic textures complete with spellbinding harmonies.
Words: Karl Johnson | Photo: Hannah Mason
At some point this year I’d imagine NME will come out with a guide on “how to be a buzz band in 2021,” the quick answer being move to South London and play The Windmill (all things considered it’s actually not a bad plan). But, what if you were born in those very South London streets and you’ve witnessed the subtle – and not so subtle – gentrification of an area in which you grew up.
For Black Bordello, this is the case for vocalist and guitarist Sienna Bordello, and during the lost year of 2020 she found that the Nunhead cemetery where she would visit the graves of family members, “was now ruined by over-privileged pleasure makers who had no real connection to the area or its history.” The video was captured in that very cemetery, and the resulting new single was aptly entitled Nunhead.
The track itself bends between a bass-driven whirlpool of keys and shooting electronic textures and an off-kilter and Blur-esque push and pull in the verses, complete with a combination of spellbinding harmonies – the stunning and theatrical vocal delivery of Sienna Bordello sits at it’s epicentre. The release of Nunhead arrives in conjunction with the band’s signing to Hideous Mink Records (Opus Kink, Fake Turins, Body Horror) and ahead of a support slot with Goat Girl at The Ivy House, Nunhead this coming Friday 27th August.
hardofhearingmagazine.com 