Ravishing avant-pop from south London
Who?
Digital Roses’ Trudi Veremu and Joanna Ramsay Patel met on a course in music composition and production at Goldsmiths College in London, though their paths to get there were wildly different. Joanna is classically trained – “whatever that means” – while vocalist Trudi was enmeshed in the Bristol dance scene, working with iconic drum ’n’ bass producer Krust and his Full Cycle Records crew. Her original plan of “getting together with other women of colour to see if we could jam together” was quickly modified when she met with Joanna. “There was fire right away,” says Trudi. “It was clear there was a vibe. By our second session we’d come up with three of the songs that’ll be on our first album.”
Why Digital Roses?
In their own words, Digital Roses deal in “experimental pop”. Released on seven-inch, their debut single ‘Waterfalls’ is an exercise in controlled euphoria that sees Joanna’s tender vocal buffeted by brutal slabs of sound (“It’s a heavily electronic project but also vocal-led so it has pop sensibilities in that regard,” she says). Their follow-up, ‘Under The Sea’, sports glacial synths, heavily distorted vocals and a beguiling melody that’s a close relative of the ‘Blake’s 7’ theme. As you’d imagine, their influences run wide. Both namecheck Massive Attack as well as Current 93, The Knife and, crucially, Björk. “She’s always had a sort of adaptability to any kind of sound and that’s something we’d like to emulate,” says Joanna.
Tell Us More…
They have just finished putting together a multimedia performance (‘Noise Petals’) with poets, contemporary dancers and other musicians. Dubbing it a “quasi-opera”, it premiered at Goldsmiths’ theatre in September, and Trudi and Joanna plan on taking it to other venues in the New Year, around the same time they unleash their debut album, also called ‘Noise Petals’.
‘Waterfalls’/‘Under The Sea’ is out on Feral Child
