Glimmers of pure pop potential from Sky Ferreira at Madame JoJo's

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk.

Ever since ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’ emerged in the latter part of last year with its seductive monochrome video, a quite serious buzz has surrounded 20 year old Sky Ferreira. Widely regarded as one of the best lo-fi pop tracks of 2012, the rest of her Ghost EP that went with it was, in comparison, somewhat mediocre. Nevertheless, her live performances remained a catalyst for hype and the pop prospect of the singer-songwriting model alongside Best Fit’s very own FAYE, at Madame JoJo’s was too much to resist.

There was an expectant air about the Soho club and Sky was met with high-pitched ‘woops’ from a handful of almost groupie-like fans. Accompanied by a four-piece band, impressive strobe lighting and an incredibly short dress, the starlet produced an unexpectedly scuzzy opening. An almost Courtney Love-like feel appeared owing to a few songs with early 2000′s American rock flange guitar, power chords and fairly nondescript melodies. In between songs too, there was a weirdly unnerving awkwardness, only broken up by a very brief chat with a baying fan.

‘Sad Dream’ provided the sets ballad, allowing some vocal ability to shine over ever-so-slightly suspect acoustic guitar playing, before ‘Ghost’ displayed moments of songwriting nous; interesting relationships between chord progressions and voice and a welcome move away from the fuzz. Then a diamond in the rough appears in the shape of her “next single to come at some point”, ‘You’re Not The One’. With a killer twinkling riff, the crunching drums heard in ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’ is up next, which unsurprisingly closed the set and failed to disappoint, and a wonderful pop chorus, it was the entirely obvious and brilliant highlight.

The two tracks show undeniable potential in this striking star but, for now at least with old tracks dominating, the live show demonstrates not a huge amount more than these glimmers of pop perfection.