Beaty Heart at Rough Trade East

When Beaty Heart, originating from Goldsmiths, University of London, enter the Rough Trade East stage they immediately dress their surroundings with palm trees and exotic flowers just by playing their sunny tunes. The set is playful, with Josh Mitchell’s vocals almost screaming out the lyrics, happy yelps from the band in chorus and the members swapping instruments every now and then. Beaty Heart’s tropical, psychedelic drum pop is heavily influenced by Animal Collective’s bright experimental psychedelia, and the cheerfulness of Vampire Weekend. Mix these two big acts in a blender and add some palm trees and coconuts and you have Beaty Heart.

The band’s playful sound is capsuled in Lekka Freakout, where the sound aesthetics leads us through an underwater carnival when the base line is reminiscent of the one you’d hear at the amusement park as a child. That mixed with the bubbly vocals and joyous cries makes for a very cheerful and pleasant tune. Sometimes it feels a bit much, though, and you wish for a darker streak to turn up and give some sort of contrast and variety to the set. Otherwise Beaty Heart are dynamic and varied with their bandmates changing of instruments, their live sampling and looping and with the sudden surfacing of sampled instruments like banjo and didgeridoo.

The highlight of the show is Yadwicha’s Theme, which is probably as close as you get to that darker vibe you longed for during the set. A big part of the song is instrumental the heavy beat enrapturing. The band finishes their show by promoting, for the fourth time, their newly-released album, accompanying it with the single Seafood. Like Lekka Freakout, the finishing track captures the band’s sound and vibe entirely.

Altogether, the set is a cheerful and uplifting one, but a darker stroke would be a good advice for the future.

Johanna Eliasson

For further information and future events visit Beaty Heart’s website here.

Watch the video for Seafood here: