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Divine Schism: Big Joanie
w/ Ghum & Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani
Presented by: Divine Schism| 0 | OXFORD: The Bullingdon |
|---|---|
| P | Tuesday 10th January, 2023 |
| N | 7:30pm |
Event information
OMG - pals Big Joanie are coming back to Oxford after 4 years! Main tour support from Ghum who last played a show for us at If Not Now, When? in 2018
Black feminist punk band Big Joanie have announced their upcoming second album 'Back Home', set for release 4th November on Daydream Library Series in the UK and Kill Rock Stars in the US pre-order.
The London-based trio have also released a new single in form of rock n roll ballad 'In My Arms', accompanied by a fantastic performance video celebrating queer love and friendship. Watch the heartwarming video above, as filmed in Southend and directed by Lydia Garrett for Girls In Films Productions. "At this point I was getting tired of living in London and dreaming about another life" says singer and guitarist Stephanie Phillips about writing 'In My Arms'. "It’s about knowing you should go another way in life but you end up dreaming about the road you’ve already travelled down even though you know it won’t take you where you need to go."
To mark the album launch, Big Joanie will be playing a one-off show at Third Man London's basement gig space this Friday, 29th July. Fans can sign up to the newsletter to get a chance to win an exclusive invite here. Big Joanie will also be playing a UK headline tour January to February 2023, a show at Pitchfork London and will be supporting the one and only Courtney Barnett in Autumn. Full details below, the 2023 UK tour goes on sale 10am on Friday 29th July from bigjoanie.com.
The brand new album 'Back Home' follows on from last month's BBC 6music playlisted single 'Happier Still' and a couple of blistering shows at Glastonbury and supporting St Vincent. It was also the first single since the release Big Joanie's 2020 cover of Solange's ‘Cranes in the Sky’, released on Jack White’s Third Man Records. Recorded at Hermitage Works Studios in North London, 'Back Home' was produced and mixed by Margo Broom (Goat Girl, Fat White Family) and features violin courtesy of Charlotte Valentine of the experimental art rock project No Home, who recently collaborated with the LA-based artist SASAMI. 'Back Home' is a dramatic leap forward for the band; the band build on their tightly knit, lo-fi punk formula to bring forth a collage of blazing guitars, down tempo dance punk, and melancholic strings that evoke the full depth of the band’s expansive art punk vision.
The album title references a search for a place to call home, whether real or metaphysical. “We were really ruminating on the idea of a home and what it means,” explains Stephanie. “It’s about the different ideas of home, whether that’s here in the UK, back in Africa or the Caribbean, or a place that doesn’t really exist; it’s neither here nor there."
The band worked with multidisciplinary artist Angelica Ellis to design the striking embroidered cover art, which is a depiction of Chardine’s nephew at the barbers. The artwork is a reference to the embroidered wall hangings popular in Caribbean homes post-Windrush that were a callback to the homes they left behind.
The album’s strength lies in the band’s bold and varied new sound. Album opener ‘Cactus Tree’ is an eerie, gothic folk tale that tells the story of a woman waiting for her lover while a wall of euphoric harmonies and screaming feedback roll in the background. Lead single ‘Happier Still’ is a driving, Nirvana-influenced track that grapples with the idea of wanting to push through a depressive episode. Inspired equally by the melodic rock of Hüsker Dü and the mystical sensibilities of Stevie Nicks, closer ‘Sainted’ brings the club-ready sentiment of the 2018 single ‘Fall Asleep’ to its natural conclusion.
