The fourth edition of Pitchfork Music Festival London brings two of alternative hip-hop’s most alluring talents to the British capital.
The entrance hall to globally infamous nightspot Fabric feels eerily quiet this evening. A far cry from the 3am disarray that one might associate with the venue; there are no sweaty punters seeking respite from the dancefloor, no wonky traffic to and from the smoking area and not a deep meaningful chat through gurning jaws in sight.
As you meander down the many stairs of the exposed-brick rabbit warren and towards the venue’s main gig space, however, previously distant echoes of sludgy bassnotes and confrontational, almost shouted, verse become louder and clearer; switching into audible focus like an expedition into zone 1’s perilous underworld.
E L U C I D is performing second on a bill of four acts tonight, following opener Goya Gumbani and readying the crowd – which is already flowing beyond the perimeters of Fabric’s primary room – for Moor Mother and headliner billy woods.
One half of acclaimed duo Armand Hammer, in which he plays the role of abrasive, leftfield ying to billy woods’ much slicker yang, E L U C I D’s inclusion on the bill might feel like something of an easy choice, but to see the pair both featured on tonight’s roster is undoubtedly a draw, made all the more apparent by the size of the audience who are already in the venue.
Wrongfully disregarded by some a serial collaborator (his 2018 Nostrum Grocers project with milo sounds as fresh as ever), to say that E L U C I D’s place at the top table of experimental hip-hop is justified would be an understatement and this year’s REVELATOR LP has turned many heads which were previously uninitiated to the rapper/producer’s capabilities. ‘THE WORLD IS DOG‘, lifted from REVELATOR, provides an early highlight in the evening, as does his nod to ‘where’ing those flowers‘, from the aforementioned Nostrum Grocers LP.
billy woods, characteristically keeping his own identity secondary to the heft of his output [see this review’s accompanying imagery], steps out to a stage which features no front-lighting whatsoever. A row of red, horizontal strip lights stand to attention behind the D.C. rapper and a couple of spotlights are aimed towards the crowd throughout a set which opens with 2022’s ‘Asylum’, before tearing through Hiding Places (his 2019 album with Kenny Segal) almost in its entirety.
Only a couple of tracks from Armand Hammer’s vast discography feature in woods’ set, ‘Niggardly (Blocked Call)’, from We Buy Diabetic Test Strips and ‘Falling Out Of The Sky’, courtesy of 2021’s Haram. An underused opportunity perhaps, considering E L U C I D’s presence in the venue, but both tracks adequately invigorate a crowd who haven’t seen daylight in close to 4 hours.
Chat between songs is brief, with woods offering shoutouts to various collaborators including Future Islands‘ Samuel T. herring (who contributed vocals to the studio version of ‘Facetime‘) and producer Kenny Segal, with both acknowledgments seeing warm receptions from Fabric.
‘Soft Landing’, a track which pools the artist’s scant, genre-clash production, seductive flow and autobiographical lyricism, closes an evening in which both woods and E L U C I D alike have exhibited why their output is more keenly anticipated now than ever before, with around 30 albums accumulated between them. This is hip-hop at its finest: raw, confessional and, in every sense of the word, thriving in the underground.
imagery: Magdalena Zehetmayr
Pitchfork Music Festival London runs from 5th-10th November
