Adventures In The UK Underground: folio

The latest in our series spotlighting the DIY spaces shaping the UK underground.

I’m starting to worry about my ears more. There’s an agenda, albeit based in care and actual evidence, popping up on my feed about ear safety at gigs. I have dabbled in the novelty of the free foam ear plugs before taking them out promptly before the act starts. The sound quality muffled and the general discomfort despite them being foam sees another deafening set thrown against my ears. (And to that I say, Loop, I’ve heard good things, and you can always sponsor me) 

This is also not helped by my gradual interest in death metal, a hard pivot from my days of listening to Imagine Dragons as much of us did at the age of 15 on the way to school. Whilst the album covers awaken a fear in me, with graphic depictions of scenes I wouldn’t know where to begin with in terms of description, the screams have started to work on me. It is fair to say that my ears need respite. 

So, what is the answer to this pervasive loudness? Acoustic innovation, it seems. And these things, if you are so fortunately connected, can arrive on your doorstep, or in this case, in Walthamstow. Delivered in the hands of Sam and Jude, folio is a new grassroots event championing the innovative voices of emerging musicians.

‘folio began off the back of a conversation we had discussing the London music scene as an emerging artist. traditional venues often felt intimidating, and we frequently found ourselves stressing over catching the attention of bookers, restrictive contracts and accepting gigs that we knew we wouldn’t fit in at.

The discovery of this event was helped via friendship with his girlfriend G. A shared interest in literature, film and writing practices as well as music taste makes perfect company for nights like these. We make our way to the warehouse in my usual manner, where we switch at the wrong station and end up in a loop back to our original station, becoming a victim to the complexities of the southbound Northern line.  

A less corporate Sofar Sounds set up, it felt immediately cosy to be sat in someone’s home. Music culture and the D.I.Y scene in other countries, like the US, where playing in someone’s garage or back garden isn’t an unfamiliar premise. People’s back gardens, etc. The antidote to small venues closing, perhaps, albeit a bleak one. The marker of our generation is that our third spaces are actually other people’s first spaces, using our friend’s living room as a space of commune and socialising in the absence of physical spaces we can afford.

‘Jude moved into a unit in the Harringay Warehouse District at the beginning of the year and we immediately felt inspired by the large communal space it had, giving us the opportunity to create the space we were looking for ourselves, rather than trying to find it.’ Traditional venues often felt intimidating, and we frequently found ourselves stressing over catching the attention of bookers, restrictive contracts and accepting gigs that we knew we wouldn’t fit in at.

An email with a video attached, detailing of the instructions as to how to access the venue, was sent to through during the day. These are the type of things, the attention I want to be charmed in these ways. Alongside the announcement of the surprise act, Heka, my new contentment for beers and the opportunity to make some new discoveries, I was happy. 

The first act of the night would be Corin Veitch. I was immediately drawn to the constant toying between soft and hardness in his guitar playing within his first track. 

'Thank you so much for having me. It’s so nice here. My house looks like a shithole,’

He goes onto sing a song named after one of his playlists, 'Cowboy’s Dream' which highlights the distinctive timbre to his singing voice. The use of the vocoder effect was a delightful surprise taking his folk into a new terrain, the song being carried solely on his beguiling and needy voice as the tempo increases towards the end of the track. 'I woke up yesterday with toothpaste in my hand', he sings. Such simplicity still carries something evocative, maintaining a lyricism that is crafted rather than strung together.

A cover of a song I couldn’t name nor remember its name has a couple of stops and starts before he officially begins again, but this is welcomed in such an environment where the experimental is celebrated. If anything, this approach contains my favourite element of early ‘The Microphones’ projects, a scratchy

‘This is what live music is all about’.

We’d have co-founder of folio, Jude Mccreath, next. I couldn't help but draw parallels between his guitar skills and Daniel Rossen's, skipping between chords seamlessly, effortless allure. Stylish sense of play, to the point of envying his finger plucking abilities as I thought of myself honing my ukulele skills in my bedroom. 'First song I ever wrote, with my skin fade in year nine' is a line of poetry in itself, as he introduces his next song.

'Somewhere, you're the only one, it hurts, learning how to be someone'. Being words penned down at such a young age highlights the wealth of flair within this one artist. A shorter set culminating in fifteen minutes left me with the desire to hear and see more from this auspicious act.

It was time for the surprise act, Heka, to take to the front of the living room. A solo artist as well as a guitarist for the musical act ‘Skydaddy’, I’d seen her open for Ugly a couple of years back and was moved by an emotional set. 

‘I’m sorry, this one is also a little depressing,’ she announced to the audience at the time.

‘It’s OK,’ a random lady said to my friend and I as we all laughed.

The intrigue to the music of Heka is found within her minimalist and haunting approach to playing her guitar, finding new layers to add onto her Loop pedal that keeps the music risky and dynamic, holding the crowd’s attention at every pivot. Introduction of a Drum pattern within a song she was performing for the first time ever, amplifying her ever so particular sound with the introduction to electronics.

And now for the part of the night where I have to click my heels three times and make my way home back to Peckham. A long commute would lead me to missing the final two acts of the night, to my dismay. There was something removed in the atmosphere of the night that I found comforting, within the crowd and the venue.

But there’s a future for spaces like folio, willing to make the most of their time and resources, however limited, and host these events by any means. London’s small label scene is strong and releasing talented that have skewed the mainstream guard of labels. A pay what you can premise with grassroot venues keeps in mind the financial instability of audience members. The desire is palpable.

So many independent venues are closing at the moment which is making it increasingly competitive to find the space to share your work. Grassroots events are the backbone of culture and in light of this, I don’t think they’ve ever been more essential. We hope our event provides an accessible platform for artists to develop and grow without the pressure of meeting ticket sales or impressing bookers. Folio is probably as stripped back as it could get, so we hope that we’re giving attendees the opportunity to connect with performances that ignore this noise and instead engage in a more genuine, unfiltered way.

One idea is to put together a compilation tape of live recordings from the events as a way to document what we’re doing. we’re really excited about the possibilities; the future is pretty limitless because there’s no one telling us what we can and can’t do.