LONELADY: Manchester’s groove maestro invites Cardiff to dance it all out

How better to celebrate the fact that it’s Friday night, the grimmest month of the year is almost over and Welsh music venues are once again alive with the sound of music than by dusting down and lacing up your dancing shoes and spending the evening in the company of LoneLady in Cardiff, whose latest album is guaranteed to get your groove on?

LoneLady, aka Julie Campbell, relocated to London to record her long-awaited third LP, released last year through Warp, but her spiritual home is Manchester, and those roots continue to show. Like fellow Mancunian Jane Weaver did with Flock, though, on Former Things Campbell has ventured boldly popwards – albeit very much on her own terms. The result is a sparkling retrofuturist delight that seems precision-engineered to appeal to anyone disappointed by St Vincent’s last outing, a suite of songs that owe more to the electro of Human League, the funk of Prince and Hacienda floorfillers than to the postpunk of Joy Division. The synth bassline squelches, fractured and manipulated vocals and pinging programmed percussion of (There Is) No Logic evoke the ambience of early 80s New York clubs, while the title track, with its fizzy beats and airy guitar, is light and joyous.

As with all of the best pop, though, beneath the surface swirl darker currents. While Campbell has justifiably claimed that “there’s a lot of fun” in the album, there is also a pervasive sense of loss in the lyrics – “I used to see the magic in everything,” she wistfully recalls at one point – in addition to recurrent images of helplessness and entrapment. On Threats, the chorus line “Everywhere I look, everywhere I turn” is repeatedly answered by the title chant, communicating the same sort of menace and profound unease as Gazelle Twin’s Pastoral. While less obviously a state-of-the-nation album, Former Things also reflects on the post-Brexit mid-pandemic context of its creation, as well as its author’s personal anxieties about self-identity and the passage of time.

The latest record naturally provides the backbone of the set, but Intuition from 2010 debut Nerve Up showcases Campbell’s ability to take twitchy post-punk tropes and transform them into something fresh (take note, Yard Act and others), while Hinterland, the title track of her 2015 album, sounds like the bridge between those early days and the new material. Sending us off into the night with the superlative Groove It Out, Campbell makes her message clear: “Fuck it – let’s dance.” Arguably the most sensible response to the shitshow we’re all caught up in.

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Fri 28 Jan

words and photos BEN WOOLHEAD