PARIS PALOMA
Paris Paloma at Islington Assembly Hall • Illustrated by Kitty Pilgrim-Morris
My introduction to Paris Paloma was through hearing her song ‘Labour’ on… TikTok. Her mega-viral moment came in 2023, with the song providing a soundtrack for women to share their experiences of misogyny. It has since become the anthem for female rage, cemented by Paloma’s release of an updated version, LABOUR (the cacophony), which includes the voices of hundreds of fans singing along to the bridge. I tend to be sceptical of songs that begin their trajectory on TikTok, both because they often feel reduced to the incessant repetition of the same 15 second clip, and also due to my pretty silly reluctance to jump on board with things that feel too ‘mainstream’. Luckily I was able to get past that and enjoy labour in full - I remember there being a few weeks last year when I couldn’t tear myself away to listen to anything else. With a debut album announced for release on 30th August, Paloma ventured on a warm up tour - five dates in the UK, followed by seven across the States, all sold out. I was lucky enough to get tickets to her London show on 7th May.
Despite music being such a unifying and connecting force, my experience of gigs has often revealed the slightly cattier, competitive-fangirl end of the live music spectrum. With each crowd member hellbent on being as close to the front as possible, often in order to get the best shot of the gig for TikTok, it feels like the reason we are all there together is easily forgotten. At Paris Paloma’s gig at the Islington Assembly Hall however, the atmosphere could
not have been more nurturing and welcoming. Minutes after arriving, my friend and I were handed cut out paper hearts, each with the instruction to place them over our phone torches during Paloma’s latest single, my mind (now). The project was received with a flood of gratitude from Paloma and her band. We were greeted by a stage adorned with an enormous moon floating across it, creating an other-wordly feeling in an already special venue, rich as the Assembly Hall is with its almost 100 year history. Eight members of London Contemporary Voices choir opened the night - each took a turn to play an original song, supported with choral arrangements from the other seven. Setting the tone for the rest of the night, it was beautiful to see these talented people, usually parts of a bigger collective, share solo work and be so supportive of each other. It felt candid, relaxed and authentic.
Paris Paloma’s set wove unreleased tracks with those more familiar - even for the unheard songs, the crowd was incredibly engaged. With a primarily female audience, there was a wonderful sense of community, of being united by the catharsis of screaming along to Paloma’s female-rage centred tracks. We jokingly discussed with those beside us in the crowd how Paloma completes the ‘big three’ of women making ethereal, epic and somewhat gothic songs about the female experience (joining Ethel Cain and Florence Welch), and she absolutely lived up to that title in her set. In an interview with DORK Magazine last October, Paloma explained how she didn’t ‘want to reduce the meaning of being a woman to our capacity for pain and anger’, and one could indeed feel how she balanced her songs on those subjects with lighter interactions with the crowd, making jokes about her mum being in attendance and giggling along with us about how extra the moon was. She came across as warm and down-to-earth. With her album set for release this summer, Paris Paloma is only just getting started.
Author: Kitty Pilgrim-Morris
24/05/2024