LIVE REVIEW: Mermaid Chunky, Me Lost Me @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle (05.12.25)

Image by Lee Fisher

Me Lost Me was the perfect choice for a Mermaid Chunky support: a similar toolkit, a cross-genre approach, a curious worldview. Tonight was a particularly great set, honed from a whole lot of touring since the release of the wonderful This Material Moment. Jayne seemed particularly relaxed and chatty, and her voice was as good as I’ve ever heard it. We got an impromptu art history lecture (ostensibly about the strangeness of Carlo Crivelli’s Immaculate Conception), we got liturgical drones and folk balladry. We got a whole lot of magic.

I have an aversion to dressing up boxes, things that hint at ‘kooky’, anything that might be considered ‘fun’. In short, everything about Mermaid Chunky should ring alarm bells but when they opened Supersonic Festival this year, a riot of recorders, hats and backing dancers, I was smitten. And tonight’s return to Cobalt (insert the obligatory praise for what a wonderful venture Cobalt is here) was absolutely magnificent. This was the last night of their tour (maybe their last gig of a busy year?) and perhaps Freya and Moina were a bit frazzled but they seemed to find everything hysterical and projected a kind of glorious shambolic chaos. This is deceptive. Beneath the costumes and the make-up and the giggling, Mermaid Chunky know exactly what they’re doing – building playful, charming but absolutely banging dance-pop that makes you shuffle / jump up and down / wiggle your ass (delete as applicable). There are ska-inflected bits, April Showers-sampling bits, rhythm tracks from a pair of chattering joke teeth bits. Céilí is simply beautiful, a looped recorder riff evolving into something worthy of Ultramarine – bucolic, joyful dance music. One of the tunes evokes 808 State’s Pacific State, there’s some double-recorder action, like a Sunday school Roland Rahsaan Kirk, and some fine sax playing, and there are ludicrous dance routines. As the audience go batshit, the visuals move into overload and Moina and Freya pull off another wonky, Fisher Price rave anthem, I realise I might be having a whole lot of fun. Fucksake.