FEATURE:
Spotlight
PHOTO CREDIT: @brynley.davies
Biig Piig
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THERE are a lot of fantastic female artists…
PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK
and female-led bands who are really turning my head right now. Pom Poko is a name you should check out but, before you do, investigate Biig Piig. I wonder whether she will put together a Wikipedia page – at the time of this feature, I could not find one. She is an artist who was tipped heavily last year and is fulfilling that promise and potential. Biig Piig has a new track out, Roses and Gold, and you should check out her Spotify page to listen to all her great material. I am not sure whether there are plans for a studio album, but she has released E.P.s and singles, so there is plenty to get your teeth into. It is hard to compare Biig Piig to anyone…and I guess that is pretty good. The tendency is for everyone to link artists to others and see where they came from. Rather than hearing other voices and songwriters in Biig Piig’s work, I can hear colours and shades. That might sound a bit pretentious, but she is an artist who has her own voice yet manages to add so much into her songs! Before carrying on, I want to bring in a feature from last year that talks about her start – and that rare moniker – and how her music life began:
“Smyth’s path to making music as Biig Piig – a pseudonym she found on a pizza menu – started when she moved to London from Spain aged 13. Inspired by watching videos of acoustic covers on YouTube, she started making her own videos and attending local open mic nights. At college, she was introduced to a whole world of music outside of her folk bubble, leading to a fateful meeting with producer Lloyd MacDonald, and Ava Laurel – aka musician and MC Lava La Rue – founder of the Nine8 Collective, a West London-based group of underground musicians, artists, and designers. Smyth has been a part of the collective ever since, collaborating on projects spanning music, filmmaking, and clothing design.
Her move into hip-hop was sparked by a chance visit to a party with Ava: “There was a soundsystem with hip-hop beats, and people just flowing over a mic – I’d never seen that kind of thing before. They put on a Dilla beat and someone handed me the mic. I was off my tits and I just took it and started singing – I thought ‘fuck! I don’t even know what I’m doing!’ but I kept going and the crowd were really into it. Ava looked at me and said ‘Jess, you need to get into making this kind of music’. So I met up with Lloyd and we started messing around with beats and putting melodies over the top. At first I wasn’t very confident because it wasn’t my field, but eventually it started coming easy”.
I love what she is putting out into the world and I think 2020 is a year when she will really clean up. This year has been an eclectic and stunning one for music. There have been some great bands pushing through, however, I feel solo artists are still at the very peak. Biig Piig has been played on stations such as BBC Radio 6 Music and she is an artist whose music is not limited to a demographic. I wanted to finish with a couple of interviews, where she talks about her songwriting and approach. Here, in a feature from earlier in the year, Biig Piig was asked about her content and voice:
“Her tone gets a slightly introspective peak when she pauses, then continues with “I feel like I’m starting to get out of the habit of looking back too much. Cause you can overthink and over complicate things in your own head. When it’s finished, just put it out and keep going. Otherwise, you’ll just tangle yourself up.”
So too much self-analysis is a negative thing? “It’s the worst, especially when you’re trying to make yourself sound like yourself, comparing yourself to the old records. Oh, that part needs to sound like that cause that’s how it used to be. That’s NOT the way to go.”
London has been Smyth’s home for years now. Creatively, the vibe of the city suits the artist down to the ground. “[There’s] so many different musicians, so many different scenes about – especially right now. Such a good buzz between those different worlds…there’s a lot going on & a lot of opportunities to see & do different things”.
To give just a taste, A World Without Snooze came out in March, while Nine8’s No Smoke came out just under two months later. All this while doing gigs with both projects. When I mention the schedule Smyth laughs it off with “The month of March was a bit intense, it was good though. To finally have that out [Nine8’s EP] and released is the best feeling cause you can kinda breathe – it’s liberating.”
Yet, Smyth seems eager to push forward “I feel like I’m just kind of ready to get this third one out now – get it finalised. I’ll definitely start recording it this summer. Then hopefully get it out by the end of the year..We’ll see.”
This drive is no small part fuelled by a desire to grow creatively, Smyth tells me that “I feel like, there are always things I want to improve. It’s cool though, I’m kinda finding my feet in terms of how I like to work. There’s more of a calm when you go to do it. Cause I kinda know myself and how to jump into it”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Parri Thomas for The Line of Best Fit
She is growing by the release, and I think 2020 is the year when we will see Biig Piig get big festival dates and acclaim. Her fanbase is rising and, if you can follow her on social media, there are some links at the bottom of this piece. There are a lot of other great interviews and features regarding Biig Piig, but I was struck by a feature from Loud and Quiet that took us inside her London home and how her living space connects with her music:
“There’s a guy who lives near Jess Smyth who keeps bringing random shit to her house. She tells me about this when showing me yesterday’s drop – a blue carrier bag full of old Will Young CDs. It’s a story that she casually puts out there and smoothly glides away from, which befits the music she makes as Biig Piig: storytelling hip-hop that’s slow and heavy-lidded, and nonplussed by fussy details. Just as ‘Perdida’ has Smyth gently singing, “I just wanna lay here/ And smoke my cig/ And drink my wine/ And think”, stopping to question who the guy with the Will Young CDs is, or what the hell he’s playing at, is not really important. I’ll ask about it later.
For now, the arts scene of Peckham seems to work well for Biig Piig, who at the end of last year put on a show at the local working men’s club and packed it with a bunch of friends and fans who dreamily nodded along to her Big Fan of the Sesh, Vol 1 EP. She tells me there was a completely different feel to her more recent show at the much bigger Village Underground in support of her new EP, A World Without Snooze, Vol 2 – it was leery.
Smyth’s room – in a house she shares with three friends currently studying graphic design and film – is as minimal as her music is. Her walls are plain but for a couple of film posters, a framed print she found in the street and a makeshift washing line with a few items of clothing pegged to it. While we’re talking she peels the back off of a Rebellion Extinction sticker from the recent climate change protests and slaps it on the wall too. There’s also a painting of Eve by the daughter of a family friend, of which Smyth says it wouldn’t feel like home without, and a small stack of books (“but I’m not a reader”). It’s a calming, clutter-less space, where found items are here and there, and a deck of cards which hark back to Smyth’s previous double life as a late-night poker dealer. She demonstrates her impressive shuffle, reads my tarot cards (also dropped off by her neighbour), and then talks me through her new home and the things in it”.
Biig Piig is a fascinating artist, and I think she has hit upon a sound that is so rare yet accessible. Many eyes will be cast her way as we head towards next year. Biig Piig has accomplished so much already, and go and see her play if you are nearby. I shall wrap things up, but I just wanted to bring to attention (if you have not heard of her already), an artist who is producing sensational music. As we look around for music that can dig deep and lift the spirits, it is clear we need more artists like Biig Piig…
IN the industry.
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