Live Review

I Blame Coco – CAMP, London

• 16th Sep 2010

A dilapidated, undecorated, hot and sweaty basement in Shoreditch is not necessarily where you’d expect to see I Blame Coco performing a low-key gig in the run up to the launch of her debut album, ‘The Constant’. But it’s refreshing to see that, despite the multi-album deal with Island Records, the fledgling film career (she appeared in 2007’s ‘Stardust’ as Claire Danes’ sister), the summer of appearances at major festivals, and the backing of a major PR campaign, Coco is still willing to “slum it” and develop her career the hard way.

And this gig at the City Arts and Music Project is certainly the right way to go about launching an album, allowing her small but growing fanbase an opportunity to see her in a more intimate setting than at a large outdoor festival. There is barely a stage to speak of, and with her band occupying much of the tiny space that does exist, Coco is practically crowd-surfing from the minute she walks on stage.

Dressed in a smart shirt and jeans, she seems relaxed as she launches straight into ‘Vanilla Sky’. It’s something of a contrast to her set at Latitude Festival earlier in the summer, which was delayed by a collapsing tent. There, she seemed nervous and hardly smiled throughout, but tonight, she beams with joy between songs. Recent single ‘Self Machine’ drops early in the set, to a rapturous reception. It’s a brilliant tune that received deserved radio airplay in the early summer, straddling the line between electronic pop and indie, and with a memorable melody, Coco singing of a “lonely robot in the wasteland”. It was co-written with long-time Robyn collaborator, Klas Åhlund, and his knack for a catchy pop song has clearly rubbed off.

Coco’s voice is powerful, and she has a good vocal range, which she displays to the full on album tracks such as ‘Turn Your Back On Love’ and ‘Please Rewind’. If there’s one criticism to be made, it’s that she doesn’t seem entirely comfortable on stage yet, and perhaps lacks a real presence. There’s a tomboyishness about the way she moves around the stage and pushes her raised fists out towards the crowd. That slight lack of stage-craft will improve with time and experience though, and for now, it’s more important that audiences are introduced to her songs. The reaction to former single ‘Caesar’ is euphoric and she rounds off her set with new single ‘Quicker’ before departing to huge cheers from the small but enthusiastic crowd.

Most importantly, I’ve managed to complete this entire review without making reference to her famous father, or the way that she tends to sound like him in her intonation of certain words, particularly those with -sion or -tion suffixes. That said, Coco clearly has the ability and the drive to become a major star in her own right, and there are clearly big things in store for this talented newcomer.