A assessment by Will Pritchard for London’s Telegraph.
Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz shocked the group at Koko with their mystical, multi-lingual art-pop and extraordinary chemistry
It’s commonplace for musicians who play collectively evening after evening to develop an innate sense of communication, just like the invisible electrical crackle of a shoal of fish. However when Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz hit a groove, it goes past that. As Ibeyi, the pair steadily end one another’s ideas in interviews; on stage, as they had been on Monday beneath KOKO’s ornamental theatre arch, they full one another’s each transfer. Their chemistry is nothing in need of extraordinary.
Since signing with XL Recordings (as soon as residence to Adele) in 2013, the French-Cuban sister duo have quietly compiled a list as idiosyncratic as it’s alluring. It’s art-pop that isn’t too pretentious to say I like you. They sing – and, boy, do they sing: all of the notes you realize, after which those in-between, often on the identical time – in French, English, Yoruba, and Spanish, alongside a globe-sprawling ensemble of collaborators and ancestors. Their sonic palette is a stunning mélange of salsa, samba, hip-hop, R&B, and different pop; their lyrics are equally syncretic.
Spell 31, their most up-to-date album, takes its title from an incantation dug out from The Egyptian Ebook of the Lifeless and leans full-hearted into the magical parts that had shimmered across the fringes of 2017’s Ash and the duo’s self-titled 2015 debut. Songs traverse household and femininity, race and the deep roots and shared experiences of ancestry. These throughlines mesh and meld throughout their three albums thus far in rhythmic callbacks and harmonies that span the years – and so they make much more sense when performed and heard collectively.
Early on within the gig, a barely timid acapella of the pearlescent Lavender & Pink Roses was coaxed from the stiff however prepared crowd. This was a November evening in want of some warming. However, with the potent call-to-arms of Deathless, the room was quickly writhing and bellowing the defiant refrain – written by Lisa-Kaindé in response to being harassed on the street at age 16 – on command. “We don’t need cute, we would like rage,” she urged, pushing a fist within the air and calling in one other group chant of the hook: “We’re deathless.” Ecstatic catharsis flooded the room.
Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi are twins (their title, Ibeyi, means simply that in Yoruba), however they’re removed from similar. Lisa-Kaindé appeared a mop of curls, swirling round her keyboard in a crop prime, whereas Naomi wore tight plaits atop a coutured jacket, steely and exact over her cajón, slapping her chest and thighs and sending popping clicks out from her fingers. Whereas Lisa-Kaindé monologued to the viewers, brimming with chest-clutching emotion, Naomi opted to pump them with hand gestures (“I like dancing, however I hate speaking,” she mentioned).
Their vocal types too – Lisa-Kaindé’s swooning R&B tickle to Naomi’s forceful, throaty husk – are poles aside, tied in and punctuated by a staccato “hey!” or “ho!”. The magic is in the way it all suits collectively. By no means was this extra tangible final evening than when the 2 had been alone on stage and the chatty Camden crowd succumbed to a complete hush. With Ash, an eggshell duet of piano and Naomi’s bare vocals, it was if the entire world had stopped turning, in order to not disturb the second.
The encore was a naked bones rendition of Tears Are Our Medication, sung from spotlit bar stools, gorgeous the group to silence one final time. The pair departed, inviting followers to come back and hang around by the tour bus, and a throng quickly gathered across the gleaming white car – a double-decker bearing its more-than-apt branding in capital letters: STARSTRUCK. London had certainly been struck with awe.