DOOMSCROLL: Slags, sewage and queer nightlife salvation in Hackney
Event Review: DOOMSCROLL
For people who like…rave, hardcore, queer friendly.
On Saturday 6th April, The Yard in Hackney Wick saw the opulent slutfest of DOOMSCROLL return to London with ECO SLAG. SoundSight writer Cameron Evans pulled up to check it out.
ECO SLAG, as BDSM Gardner explains:
“IS ABOUT JUST BEING PINNED DOWN TO YOUR BED BY ALL YOUR ANXIETIES ABOUT THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, AND THE KNOCK ON EFFECTS OF A CLIMATE THAT CANNOT SUPPORT THE HUMAN ECOSYSTEM ANY LONGER. BEING A SLAAAG JUST MEANS WEARING HARDLY ANYTHIN’ AND DANCIN AROUND LIKE A SEXY LITTLE MINX.”
DOOMSCROLL is a multidisciplinary queer utopia and supersized collaboration between artists IN BED WITH MY BROTHER, GLYSK, DJ Brain Rays, Quiet, AstraBeneca, and Bopa Rhys.
As BDSM Gardner explains:
“DOOMSCROLL WAS DREAMT UP ON A SWEATY F***IN’ DAY AT BANGFACE WEEKENDER. WE STARTED DOIN TV, WE WANTED TO REACH PEOPLE IN THEIR CHALETS AND REALLY DISSOLVE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE DANCEFLOOR AND PEOPLE’S NOGGINS. WE STARTED WITH WRONG MUSIC AT BANGFACE AND IT’S JUST ROLLED ON FROM THERE REALLY.”
Its London gig was a prelude to its performance between 11-14 April at seminal Welsh live art festival Experimentica in Cardiff. DOOMSCROLL is also a Yard Nightlife Resident for 2024 and a regular at BANGFACE WEEKENDER – an autumn dance festival in a Butlin’s around Skegness which sees stages usually reserved for crooning singers subsumed in a slutty extravaganza.
DOOMSCROLL are all about creating a safe space for pure silliness – as they write, it’s a night where “massive bangers collide into nightlife, comedy, drag and performance. It feels like 40 open tabs, all playing simultaneously. High on energy. Heavy on sweat.”
In conversation with me before the event, mainstay DJ Brain Rays mentions the importance of “curating it so that people don’t feel confused, and feel held.”
As the night begins, the empowerment imbued in the space they curate is already obvious; the directive is to dress as your nan’s garden, and sunflowers, flames and wigs abound in a glorious kaleidoscope of creativity. The first act steps onto the dance floor – BUOYS BUOYS BUOYS comes out to declare the moral perils of supporting those destroying planet Earth in an amazing outfit of strapped back vegan dark leather and a grey sloth toy attached to the shoulder, which has a yellow sash with SWIFTIE in blood red writing on it, complimented by a bloodied face.
Bumblebee attired THIRRRSTY comes out after – the lights begin to flash to the lyrics of:
We’re all pansexual
It’s all transgressional
They are wearing a black and yellow Adidas jacket with a bee hat and an SOS sign on their back. High octave, high pitched observations ensue matched by a buzzing atmosphere. The chaotic energy, very much matched by the crowd, combines a hedonistic and tongue-in-cheek approach with an incredibly well-delivered spoken word message of ecological destruction.
The dancing begins and the ante is upped; the snare blasts at a quaking pace as the DJs expertly manoeuvre the decks. The dancing becomes more instinctive, easier. Crocheted goods and costumes shine in the predominantly red lights of the venue.
A new performance starts from In Bed With My Brother – screams of “I’m so fucking thirsty!” pierce the room as the word oil is pumped again and again incessantly on the screen. The images of prominent oil companies Shell and BP and shown amongst ‘In Bed With My Brother.’
The beat grows harder and the night grows deeper. DOOMSCROLL splinters down toward a glorious alchemy and apogee.
ECO SLAG was an incredibly on point and self-aware mix of satire and sadness playfully examining the ecological crisis we’re in, and using a queer perspective and space to address and amplify challenges to our ruining of the Earth – messages we are all in dire need of paying heed to.
Some Soundsight selected songs from the night:
- You don’t have to worry (Big Ang Rave Remix) by Chrissy
- Smack the Door by Dismantle & Van Basten
- Haraka “حركة” by moktar & Saad El Soghayar
- Out of My Mind (feat. inkwill) by gyrofield
Follow DOOMSCROLL on Insta to keep up to date with their Yard residency. Stay tuned for Cameron’s upcoming article on DOOMSCROLL’s views of and ambitions within London’s beset nightlife scene and more!
