Music / The Louisiana
Review: Nimmo, The Louisiana
After deciding to be in a band whilst still at high school in south London many years ago, and honing their craft in Camden pubs, best friends Sarah and Reva have developed into a supremely good double act with electric, charismatic onstage energy and songs packed with hooky melodies.
On this Wednesday night in March, coronavirus is a topic that’s only just starting to creep into normal conversation but the relatively small turnout for Nimmo is possibly a foreshadowing of things to come. Over the course of the evening, the duo whisk us away from the world outside with their escapist dance-floor pop.
One of the tracks kicking off the set is Place to Rent, which is quite obviously Nimmo’s ode to their time in between leaving Sony and starting life again as independent artists. Honest lyrics about a dismal period are given a jubilant, driving energy with a pulsing synth and piano riffs, and you sense the pair get a pretty good satisfaction from singing them having come out the other side of label politics and self-rediscovery.
is needed now More than ever
The pair took on jobs at a cafe in London for a year, writing lyrics on a notebook under the till in between taking orders, which was “the funniest fucking thing ever”.
“Honest lyrics about a dismal period are given a jubilant, driving energy with a pulsing synth and piano riffs”
Though the 9–5 life was only ever meant to be temporary, whilst they saved money and worked out a gameplan, Sarah says she experienced a loss of self but upon unearthing some old poetry of hers, she was reminded of her artistic ‘power’. On the album she expresses this on a spoken-word track which is incredibly – for want of a better word – powerful, full of gut-punch lines about the loss of dignity and fallibility of childhood heroes.
When performed live, The Power is a moment of quiet gravitas that commands attention in the middle of a dynamic, danceable set. That’s not to say the rest of the music doesn’t have depth – Nimmo are adept at overlaying tripping disco and garage beats with soul-searching lyrics, transforming what would otherwise be a depressing sentiment into a joyous release.
Brand new self-produced single Do I Have to Learn It? with its soaring chorus melody and grooving bass, released just the day before the gig, gets the crowd going as much as older favourites like UnYoung, whose skipping jungle rhythm and close harmonies are as tight as ever.
Cutting loose from Sony gave Nimmo a new freedom to work out exactly the artist they wanted to be, without “forty people telling us what they think of every song”. They returned to DJing, found identity in east London’s gay scene and spent a fabulous five weeks in Lisbon writing material and “mincing down the street” for a music video. It couldn’t be clearer from their live show that they are in total artistic command, and they love it.
A much-anticipated UK tour has been cut short, but hurdles are nothing new for Nimmo, so no doubt they will come out of this stronger than ever before – we’d better be ready for them when it happens.
Follow Nimmo on Instagram and Twitter.
Main image: Caitlin Bowring
Read more: Interview: Nimmo
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