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“ Burn Alive », a song taken from an album which has just been released, signed by a group which, you have just heard, does not give in to restrained whispers and strangled modesty. A song with a flamboyant lyrical style, as we speak of flamboyant baroque, signed and performed by a group called The Last Dinner Party formed in London a little over three years ago by five young musicians. They published their very first album ten days ago, Prelude to Ecstasy, a prelude to ecstasy, of course, which is already very successful. I presented The Last Dinner Party to you for the first time in the very first show of the year. The core is three friends. The singer Abigail Morristhe guitarist and singer, too, Lizzie Mayland and the bassist Georgia Davies, all three self-taught musicians. They had, I told you, the good idea of ​​linking up, at King's College, one of the most venerable British universities, where they had just entered, with two excellent instrumentalists trained at the Conservatoire, the solo guitarist Emily Roberts, whose model, she proclaims it and you can hear it, is the guitarist of Queen, Brian May.

One of the great advantages of The Last Dinner PartyIt is Aurora Nishevtsi, also a composer and keyboard player of Kosovar Albanian origin, who also sings. The five friends, as I told you, were staying in the Brixton district, in south London. They used to frequent a pub, the Windmill, where bands formed by adventurous friends of the Conservatoire played, such as Squid Or Black Midi. It inspired them. They frequently found themselves, they remember, in the small smoking area. And it was during these fiery discussions that they began to imagine the group they would love to see: a group with as much visual as musical appeal. All five imagined themselves on stage as exaggerated, theatrical and slightly baroque and extravagant characters. So they mixed up a little, in their wardrobe, everything they loved about their favorite musicians: the Victorian doll dresses of Lana Del Reythe crumpled outfits of Courtney Lovegrunge period, the colorful juxtapositions of materials and colors of Lady Gaga.

Abigail Morris, the singer, is the focal point of The Last Dinner Party. She paces the stage and gesticulates with a very confident theatricality that makes the audience want to party. It is also thanks to their flamboyant shows, whose reputation spread like wildfire, that they achieved almost immediate popularity, even though they had only put two songs online, which they had taken the time to carefully develop, just like their shows. This is how in the summer of 2022, The Last Dinner Party found itself playing in the summer of 2022 on the same bill as the Rolling Stones during a big concert in Hyde Park. They went on an international tour, opening for an Irish singer Hozier, and even found themselves one evening, in Los Angeles, in front of fans who had dressed up specially to come see them and party. The group will perform on Tuesday February 20, 2024 at La Maroquinerie in Paris.
As I told you at the beginning of the year, because next time, you will probably see them from afar and very small at the Zénith.

Here is a singer about whom I spoke to you at length, already, in one of the first broadcasts of the year, during which I reviewed some expected releases. In particular that of a new album signed by a British singer, Nadine Shah. Titled Filthy Underneath. Nadine Shah has had a rather unusual journey. From Whitburn, a small coastal village in the north-east of England, she arrived in London in the early 2000s to start out as a jazz singer. She had the makings: a powerful voice, vibrant and brassy like the low notes of a saxophone. That's how she became friends with Amy Winehouse, who sang on the same stages as her and also lived in the same district of north London, Camden. They also went out to the same pub, where they were both able to drink more than the regulars of the place. And it usually ended with songs for the customers.

Nadine Shah has followed a very personal path in music, rather against the grain. A second-generation immigrant, she was raised by a father of Pakistani origin, the owner of a small blinds company, married to a Norwegian. This woman with a dignified and reserved appearance does not seek ease in her music but the truth, well, her truth. Trained in jazz, she also uses very naturally in her music the modal scales and rhythms of oriental music. The severity of his appearance and the seriousness of his voice conceal a certain deadpan and grating humor. Since his debut a little over ten years ago, he has been a close collaborator of the group Depeche Modethe artistic director Ben Hillier, who supervises his recordings. Depeche Mode, which Nadine Shah will soon accompany on tour, will open for its concerts this winter. We will be able to hear it in particular on March 3 and 5 at the Accor Arena in Paris Bercy. When the Covid pandemic broke out, Nadine returned to her village of Whitburn, in the north-east of England, to the family home, where she had to care for one of her two sick parents. She also made her debut in the theater, requested by one of her admirers, the director of a theater in Newcastle, the large nearby city, who made her interpret the role of Titania, the Fairy Queen. , in a production of Dream of a summer nightof Shakespeare. After a period that she herself described as a phase of turbulence, Nadine Shah is making a highly anticipated return. This title is called “Greatest Dancer” and it's this evening on Very Good Trip this evening on France Inter.

Playlist:

The Last Dinner Party

“Burn Alive” album “Prelude to Ecstasy”

Nadine Shah

“Greatest Dancer” single

Jane Weaver

“Love in Constant Spectacle” single

Complete Mountain Almanac

“February” (feat. Rebekka Karijord • Bryce Dessner) album “Complete Mountain Almanac”

Marika Hackman

“No Caffeine” album “Big Sigh”

Madison Cunningham • Remi Wolf

“Hospital (One Man Down)” (feat. Remi Wolf) single

Madison Cunningham

“Subtitles” single

Caroline Polachek • Weyes Blood

“Butterfly Net” (feat. Weyes Blood) single

Beth Gibbons

“Floating on a Moment” single

To find out more, listen to the show…