Live Review: JOY. 'About us'

While most 17 year olds are scheming how to get an underage 6 pack, Brisbane born JOY. aka Olivia McCarthy, instead refines her skills as a producer, vocalist and burrito advocate. Don’t believe the hype? Time to check out her latest track ‘About Us’ for yourself.

JOY. has been on the rise in the music world since winning the title of Triple J Unearthed feature artist earlier this year, this included performing at Brisbane’s Laneway Festival. Not too shabby really for someone who can’t legally enter a pub yet.

The skills of JOY. go beyond producing. She has an ethereal, fanciful voice, and plays several instruments, which is clear throughout ‘About Us’. The vocals sound glitchy to remind you that this is ultimately a work of electronic music and not pop. There is a darkness to the tone of the song however the track builds to a section that derives from the strong percussion base, its reminiscent of a pop song in the way it makes you move, but it seems to go deeper with an energy behind the synthesised strings.

The lyrics to ‘About Us’ tell a more sombre and haunting and sombre story than the music and beat itself. This consumes your overall experience with the track until towards the end when McCarthy's voice repeats over and over again, layered time and time again with strings.

JOY.’s debut EP, Ode, is due for release on August 28. Having spent a week cooped up with nothing but coffee and doughnuts she managed to come up with enough beats and lyrics to create a 4 track EP. Linking each song in what she hopes will tell a story. She also says there was “a lot of whack shit” created during this time, which would also be pretty neat to hear.

JOY. is currently touring about the country with Miami Horror, she’ll then be playing at BigSound before her EP comes out. You may also notice that her name is featured on the Beyond The Valley line up. Most of us in our 20’s are just trying to pretend we have got it together, JOY. Is pretty much putting us all to shame.

Check out more of her stuff on Soundcloud.

Words by Madeline Kilby

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