TGE 2014 TOP SIX HIGHLIGHTS - OY (ALT-POP, SWITZERLAND)

It seems like ages since Brighton's prestigious little scamp of a music festival, The Great Escape popped up across a variety of clubs, bars and secret locations to showcase new music from several hundred artists around the globe. The ominous thuds of drum sets, the warm smell of spilt beer residue, the fluttering of self-important delegate passes in the coastal breeze, we remember it fondly. So, with all that retrospective sop out of the way, we have come up with a list of our top six highlights (two from each respective day of the festival) of who entertained and who left us baying for more after the lights went down and the club doors closed.

OY (Switzerland // Komedia Studio Bar, Thursday 8th May).



We accidentally stumbled across OY warming up for their set in the Studio Bar at Komedia at the prospect of a free beer and sandwich. What initially grabbed our interest was the visual aesthetic of OY, a twosome from Switzerland consisting of Joy Frempong; a formidable woman wise beyond her years and steeped in a rich cultural intellect thanks to her African heritage and wise anecdotes. And Lleluja-Ha, a bizarrely attired squid-cum-veiled humanoid with a clear penchant for eclectic fabrics who resided most comfortably behind the drum set. 

Musically OY channelled mantra style vocal incantations and diverse pitch arrangements across a swamp of enlivened beats, electronic whoops and shifting tempo manoeuvres. A Hercules And Love Affair meets YELLE music chameleon. That probably best summed up these two. Songs such as "Akwaba" and "Market Place" will divide opinion amongst those with a less experimental taste, but to anyone who appreciates music, OY's brand of boisterous pop meets wise sensibilities made for a perfect start to The Great Escape.

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