Pink Eye Club - EDM (Emotional Dance Music) Review

Pink Eye Club trusts the process in a searingly honest, club-ready album that feels just as equipped for Ibiza as it does the Windmill.

There are few artists more embedded in the London underground than Pink Eye Club, who combines the dance magic of the Windmill scene with the energy of raves at places like Fabric. He’s incredibly fun to experience, and on first track ‘Small Talk’ he cuts straight to the point, looking back at his younger years and preferring to dance instead of bothering with conversation. And dance you feel compelled to do when listening to any track on this record; the hypnotic beats have you in a trance. “I can’t wait until the day until we can make big talk… where we don’t have to brag all the time about the smallest fucking things in our lives,” he pleads, struggling with confidence and charisma. It’s relatable to anyone who’s ever fumbled a conversation or felt awkward and out of place. It’s a testament to Pink Eye Club’s musical journey into the beating heart of the London underground scene.

One of the most enduring figures of South London’s DIY scene, Pink Eye Club is the work of Hayden Davies, who is based in Streatham and really makes his mark here. The music feels like distilled club-ready tracks that feel as right at home in the Windmill as they do in the peak era of party central Ibiza, able to tap into the outsider culture whilst fitting in with the norm. It’s a nine-track record that revels in a beating heart of dance, taps into the club scene and helps you understand the appeal even if you’re not a clubber yourself, and going to gigs and going to clubs are two very different things.

Following ‘Small Talk’, ‘Young Professionals’ captures the divide in the city perfectly, with Davies wrapping his head around the struggle of living alongside the corporate Canary Wharf types of the world over a three-minute burst of rage at the wealth inequality between professions. How can you relate to corporate strategists on 20k a week, he asks, while being so sure that you’re the person people make fun of? It’s a search for an escape from the feeling of being demonised, and that leads you to the dancefloor; a place where you’re all treated equally and everyone is there for the same reason. Yet questions are raised: are you judging them, or are they judging you? The album keeps up this wickedly self-aware, self-doubting, self-loathing and honest feel throughout, something anyone who’s shared a London flat with people on wildly different paths can relate to.

Davies is honest to a fault. On ‘I Can Be An Idiot Sometimes’, he recognises that he says things he doesn’t mean and instantly regrets them. It’s a self-explanatory track that tackles his flaws, and anyone can relate to the embarrassment of saying something without thinking.

That immediately follows ‘Cocaine Friends’, which talks about how his friends are great and he loves them but can’t stand them when they do cocaine. The hypnotic beat pulls you under throughout and swirls in a wave that helps bring out the flaws in your friends, as you get caught up in how great they are at times, but helps make you aware that they’re not always great people to be around when, in this case, cocaine comes out to play and sometimes, bluntly, you can’t stand them.

‘Paranoid’ tackles nerves, living up to expectations and the dread that precedes every social event. Even though you may be going out with friends, Davies is yelling to the air “why am I so paranoid?” and “tell me why”, because he knows that once he eventually goes out, he’ll have a good time. It’s about the dread that can take hold even when there’s no reason to expect a bad night; sometimes, there’s nothing you can do. Who hasn’t felt that feeling when bailing on a night out and not being able to dig yourself out of a rut? It’s instantly relatable, painfully honest and distilled into a micro-burst of angst and despair.

But then you feel the love when you do go out. Pink Eye Club continues this story and his love affair with London, and the dream of being able to wander into any room and be instantly adored, even when you’re longing to be embraced by those around you. It is the appeal of the familiar, despite the ever-increasing cost of London outweighing the pros sometimes: dodging train fares to afford rent, and the cost of living sometimes just being too much. These are all honest, relatable reasons to get out of London, but when you’re having so much fun? It’s hard to be torn away from the environment that you’re surrounded by. How do you find the balance? The answer is found in, of all places, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal. ‘Trust the Process’; overcome pain and the worst days of your life. This is a record that understands that sometimes not everything can happen all at once, and it takes time to figure out your life and your people. This is Pink Eye Club’s growth as a human: he’s not the same person as he was when he was younger, and you’re witnessing the level of maturity that comes with that growth. This is a person in their mid-30s reckoning with the dancefloor and what they’ve achieved, flaws and all.

Track of the record is saved till last. ‘Disco is My Religion’ captures Pink Eye Club’s first night at iconic London club Fabric and acts as an origin story for Davies’ lifelong obsession with dance. It’s relentless, you can feel the beat and you begin to wonder long before the final track: how on Earth has Pink Eye Club never made it onto the festival circuit? He feels primed for relatability on a mass scale: of anxiety, of nerves, of embracing the dance scene head on, and the music taps into a somewhat universal feel beyond being deeply personal for Davies’ relationship with the dancefloor, leaving you right at home whether at the Windmill or in Ibiza. Trust the process, recognise your flaws and embrace party mode, and you may well come good, too.