All Our Tomorrows - Working Men's Club

“Everyone should take it upon themselves to spread a message they would want their kids to listen to” says KDvsGOLIATH - the revered non-conformist who kicked today off in a fury of ‘PINK’, and an isoelastic taste for tenacious tenderness, and confidently-candid outrage.

As has been an overriding theme throughout this year’s AOT, KDvsGOLIATH is adamant in maintaining a lucidly inspired approach to songwriting and performance. A spiritual powerhouse and distinctly thrilling force to be reckoned with, his self-absorbed genre fluidity enables the twenty-two year old to “be able to do everything” with such full body possessiveness, he changes the pulse of ‘heart-onsleeve’ intimacy with demonstrated courage.

Chasing sun trails in a dreamy golden-hour nonchalance seems near impossible when the weather outside is as grey as the UK in December. Stylistically soothing, like the act of pushing your thumbs through the lovingly-worn holes of a favourite sweater, if it’s alternative splendour you’re searching for then London’s Salmon Cat are a wondrously mindful guide to tackling the winter-blues.

Featuring vocals from Jess Smyth and Lloyd MacDonald (AKA Mac Wetha) of the coveted NiNE8 collective, Salmon Cat eschew ‘lo-fi bedroom dream-pop’ in every literal incarnation of the term. Tracks ‘Frankie’ and ‘Bathtub’ enchant with crystalline notes of ‘Americana’ and atmospheric ambience, allowing their audience to step back from it all whilst simultaneously holding us dearly captivated.

Performing anthems off their debut EP ‘Toner’, (released this November via Ninja Tune imprint Big Dada), the Dan Carey produced polymaths and self-described “Country-Fried” dance trio PVA are a bludgeoning elan of sweaty elation and inimitable masters of a honed-in live act.

In ‘Divine Intervention’ their high-rise, volitional escapism of sonicfreeways and skeletal-euphoria hungers to be witnessed at full capacity and for frequenters of Brixton’s ‘The Windmill’, tonight’s set streams as an encouraging touch-in with normality; a reminiscence of all-nighters gone by and a hope for 2am lock-ins to come from a band of community-champion, and alumni of a landmark venue catalyst, in “bringing people together.”

When it comes to climaxing our desires for a gut-wrenching rave, Heavenly’s Working Men’s Club are definitive no-brainers. Smart, cultish and vigorously hybrid, WMC peel away the cacophonic layers of disillusioned societal sheen like paint scratched off a wind-up-racing car, as frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant rules the circuit with his roaringly championed formula of industrial dance music.

Here in the mind’s eye of yielded adolescence and “subconscious despair”, cavalcaded-chorus and drooled resilience stack high - forming an encompassed soundscape of distinctly juggernauted Jenga. Prowling as ringleaders of soothsaying showmanship, commanding riot in a self-contained circus-pit of staunch-grandeur and granulated maddening, with WMC, the stage is undoubtedly where they roam freest - a home to which the heart lies in a soulsucked cladding of alternatively progressive palpitations, and hypnagogic-hype.

Riding on the storm that is their self-titled debut album, numbers such as ‘Cook a Coffee’ are emphatically deadpan whilst ‘John Cooper Clarke’ and feature-single ‘Teeth’, ruminate with a near diabolical defecation of meteoric mundanity and a whit as sharp as corrugated tin-foil - wrapping last night’s in-takings and today’s second-helpings into one fully formulated, weekend extravaganza.

AOT 2020 has been two days’ worth of unified release. Moments such as these may have drawn to a temporary halt, but the show is far from over. Perhaps the most outstanding uplift we can take from it all is the undying motivation industry-wide, to ‘keep on keeping on’ for the sake of our sanity, and future creativity to come.

If the ceaseless talent demonstrated here is anything to go by, we’re going to be just fine. Hang in there.

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