Review: East India Youth at Deaf Institute

Image: East India Youth 

We’re admiring the wallpaper in the Deaf Institute as we climb to the upstairs music hall. And wait a second, is that a music box?

That’s exactly what Hannah Peel is playing, a splendid cover of Wild Beast’s, ‘Palace’. Good stuff, and a great choice for support.

She’s endearing. She succeeds when her voice takes centre stage, but on occasion it's dwarfed by sounds of her synthesiser. Is Folk-tronica even a genre? I guess it could be and that’d be the place to pigeon-hole her.

Next, 9.30 arrives. Daniel Avery’s ‘Knowing We’ll Be Here’ fades out, William Doyle enters. 

Looking as though he’d come straight from the office to his second and preferred job. Doyle AKA East India Youth, named after the East London docklands where he resides, is sharply dressed in his trademark suit.

The show contains a surge of different ideas. Doyle is not against making loud noises, he’s also not against creating eighties pop with a real tenderness, ‘Looking for Someone’ off 2014 debut Total Strife Forever springs to mind.

Once an indie kid-turned-electronic producer, he goes hell-for-leather. During the rising build up in ‘Heaven, How Long’, Doyle sings, “I cannot give less than my heart”. He messes up, but not to worry, he’s wearing a tie clip and everything so has my support.

As the night progresses, his eagerness to explore different sounds becomes more evident. ‘Beaming White’, off the new record Culture of Volume, is Doyle’s kraut-pop moment.

To summarise, he’s a lad from the South Coast via the East End. He occasionally sounds like the Pet Shop Boys if they were channelled through a single figure - a Mercury Music Prize nominated one at that.

It’s a strange aesthetic. Close your eyes and you hear sounds ideal for fans of Brian Eno or Jon Hopkins. Open them and Doyle’s there, an awkward laptop musician who’s orchestrating his frenetic, fuzzy techno. At times it’s aggressive and loud, other times it’s subdued. He’s clearly put thought into his set which is a tumultuous journey from beginning to end.

The penultimate tune is his brash electronic track and wall of sound that is ‘Hinterland’. Its solid techno structures tempt a night out that extends much further than the 11pm curfew.

And finally, for the hypnotic ‘Carousel’ off Culture of Volume,  he ditches his equipment and takes to the mic under the spotlight to bring us to a close.

Track the remainder of East India Youth's tour here. 

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