“Where’s the poetry? / Where’s the anarchy? / Where’s the love?”
All three of those things were definitely in the air when lo-fi artist heka celebrated the release of her latest EP, swan songs, at Avalon Café on Thursday. Complete with a fog machine, video projections, colorful LED lights, and a single lightbulb hanging overhead, Avalon’s small back room was the perfect setting for what felt like heka’s homecoming.
Singer-songwriter Francesca Brierley, A.K.A. heka, has been wooing London’s DIY scene since 2017 with her soft, sentimental, wonderfully strange songs, which she arranges and produces herself. This time, though, she shared the stage with Caius Williams on bass, Pike Ogivly on drums, Louie Barby on cello, and Aga Ujma on harp. heka herself wielded a red Stratocaster and a loop pedal, which she used for both guitar and vocals.
“I’m gonna play some sad music!” she merrily announced to the cheering crowd before making quick work of a guitar loop for the EP’s arguably most haunting track, ‘i’m the thorn’. She laughed off a few errant notes that made it into the loop, insisting she’d make it work. As the song built, it was easy to forget that those notes, and the subtle texture they added to the piece’s moody tone, were unintentional in the first place. This readiness to embrace imperfection and welcome dissonance is part of what makes heka so special.
Despite what heka herself might say, “sad” doesn’t fully capture what her music is about. Lyrically, she is obsessed with the visceral, the corporeal. While Thursday’s performance still carried the ever-present darkness that underpins all of her work, heka and her band covered ground from the cinematic to the soulful, from the intimate to the cacophonous, from the awe-inspiring to the gut-wrenching. The EP’s pensive, gently pulsing track ‘april (away)’ was transformed into an unexpected headbanger. Between layers of heka’s dulcet voice, Barby’s glitched-out pizzicato, and the booming rhythm section, the space was utterly bathed in sound.
To be a fan of heka, it seems, is to be a friend, too. “Everyone I play with, I’m inspired by,” she said to me before the start of the show, which opened with acts by fellow talents Jeanie Glass and James Howard. “Everyone who’s supporting, I chose them because I’m a huge fan.”
This loving atmosphere was palpable from start to finish. The venue was filled with animated conversation and physical affection between audience members and performers alike. By the end of the encore number, the energy inside Avalon was explosive; to hear this music was to move along to it, to be a part of it, whether you were holding an instrument or not.
heka is a force that draws joy and connectedness from melancholia, and she leaves no soul unaffected. I am grateful to heka for affecting my soul on Thursday, and I can’t wait to see (and hear, and feel) what she does next.
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