Jockstrap, Barbican review: a formidable night of artistry from two pop provocateurs
It was something of a homecoming for London duo Jockstrap, who began life among the concrete pillars and passageways of the Barbican Estate, where members Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye met a few years ago while studying (jazz and electronic composition, respectively) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
In recent months they’ve ascended from relative obscurity to frisky festival sets and support slots for the likes of Blur at Wembley Stadium, and so Wednesday’s seated show in the Barbican’s music hall may have seemed at odds with the pair’s lively reputation.
Instead, the night was a reminder that Jockstrap’s music — which merges folky vocals and classic pop songwriting with mercurial, club-ready electronic production and a whole tapestry of other influences – is there for listening to as much as dancing to. After an eight-piece string section ushered in opening song Neon, Ellery kicked off her clogs and burst the venue’s formal bubble.
Fan favourite Glasgow, which adopts a Joni Mitchell strum and chirp, and disco monster Greatest Hits, reached all the corners of the hall, Ellery moving about the stage as if dancing alone in her living room. Skye, meanwhile, moved tirelessly between keys, piano, and harpsichord: a Professor Frankenstein stitching songs together.
Ellery and Skye – both 24 – are of a generation to whom the idea of sticking to one genre seems totally alien. Yet their 2022 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, felt surprisingly cohesive and timeless for something made of so many fidgeting parts. Unpicking and dissecting Jockstrap’s songs only wrecks their magic.
In the Barbican’s concert hall venue, Jockstrap’s simpler tracks – and formidable musical talent – stood out, such as Sexy 2, a jaunty new song from their recent remix album, and folk guitar ballad Lancaster Court. Ellery, without her usual violin (she’s also a violinist in another Mercury-nominated band, Black Country, New Road) made her vocals the focus: most effectively during harpsichord-accompanied Angst, her voice containing all the daft emotion of Dory Previn.
That would have been enough, but the pair don’t wield a name like Jockstrap for nothing. Their penchant for provocation was duly satisfied during penultimate song The City, when an enormous concrete hulk entered stage right: the “hideous monster” of Kathy Acker’s 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School, from which the song borrows its final verse.
Reminiscent of Pet Shop Boys’ early live theatrics, a farcical scene ensued, involving an apron-clad Ellery keeping house with the monster and hurling toast across the stage, as the song seeped into upbeat finisher 50/50. The monster’s absurd, towering presence did exactly what Ellery’s clogs did at the start of the show: stick a pin in the venue’s polite atmosphere. This time, though, the audience rose to their feet, and the music hall was finally, perhaps inevitably, transformed into a dancefloor.
