It’s a hot afternoon at Rough Trade East – proper beer garden stuff – but we’re all eagerly filing into the inside semi-darkness. Sextile are in the building. They’re signposted not just with the store’s chalk signage but also by their leagues of merch, piled like the gold hoards of a very chic dragon. I was introduced to Sextile’s music through my reviewing of their latest album, yes, please., and had, post first-listen, immediately taken the next step in fan-becoming and browsed their website for merch.
Much to my delight, they are a band who put serious TLC into their purchasables. Breaking out from the dreary white-logo-on-black-t-tshirt mould, they bring forth raglan baby tees, printed mesh, ribbed tanks in three different colours (to be cropped as desired, they stress). As well as being thrilling to clotheshorses like me, varied and deliberately designed merch reflects a specific investment within a band – an investment of time and care with which they further forge identity for themselves and a visual community for their fans.
With a vest happily acquired, I watch Sextile take to the stage. Members Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keehn are outfitted in black, and the stage is dressed in white (flags that read ‘people above politics’ printed within a smiley face). Smokey purple lights the room, and as they begin, the bass immediately feels heavy and vitally red, but the only corporeal colour up there is Scaduto’s UV-dyed hair. It appears like a manifestation of the energy radiating from them both, motion-blurring around her crown as they jump.
Taking turns on vocals, electronic drum machine and synthesiser, Scaduto and Keehn create an unstoppably driving sound – there’s so much heft and power in their performance that it seems that our enthused dancing is not just reactionary but the result of their sound waves physicalizing and jostling us around.
It’s just past 8pm on a Thursday and outside the sun is still screamingly bright, but inside here Sextile have conjured an instant rave – powered and activated by the crowd’s collective perspiration. It’s apparent that everyone here is experiencing the same joy and release that I am – the sense of community pulsing with the strobes is as palpable as the bass vibration in our chests.
It’s not an easy task to persuade a room of Londoners to dance on a weekday evening, but Sextile have succeeded to such a degree that by 9pm we’ve let our hair down with euphoria.
