XOYO, London
London's dance-music doyenne unveils a euphoric new set that sounds exactly the way a great night out clubbing can feel
Dance music is sometimes dismissed as a lightweight, ephemeral concern. Uniquely among today's mainstream, chart-friendly electronic-music artists, Katy B recognises that a great hedonistic clubbing night – far from being a trivial matter – can be such a satisfying and profound experience that it verges on the sacred.
Two years ago, the London-born Kathleen Brien's debut album, On a Mission, proved her to be a fantastic evangelist and ambassador for the clubbing experience. Katy B doesn't make dance music as a convenient careerist move, but because she is steeped in it, on a weekly basis: "It's great to be playing a show at XOYO," she says, glancing around this east London cellar club. "I've had so many amazing nights here."
Her imminent second album, Little Red, looks likely to mirror its predecessor's success, because she has stuck fast to her guiding musical roots and inspirations and opted to reunite with Geeneus, the man behind the grime/dubstep radio station, Rinse FM, that spawned her.
Bouncing around the stage tonight, a flame-haired dynamo, she unveils winning, frequently euphoric new material whose achievement is to sound exactly like clubbing feels. The urgent, stabbing synths of the insatiable Next Thing capture the visceral thrill of an all-nighter; single 5am aches with the itchy melancholy that descends at dawn when the music is finally over.
"This one goes out to all the 24-hour party people," she cries defiantly as she ends an all-too-short set with Lights On, itself a song about willing the night to never end. As she skips off stage, Katy B looks just what she is: an obsessive punter who loves dancing so much that she feels compelled to make great music to dance to.
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