(Credit: Bree Hart)

“I’ve never been to Third Man Records before,” I said to our photographer, Bree Hart, as we wandered down Carnaby Street on the hunt for the store’s bright yellow exterior. It was a sunny Tuesday evening; the British summer seemed to have finally hit, and I was about to become not only acquainted but very well acquainted with the shop’s tiny blue basement.

I had thought that maybe being in a basement at 7:30pm, right as the day was stretching out into a gloriously warm evening, might not be the best use of the weather. But the offering was too good to miss—too good to miss twice, in fact. Two of the best releases I’ve heard in recent months have come from Picture Parlour and Fräulein. Both are much-hyped hyped ones-to-watch for good reason. Both released incredible new music in the same week. And now both of them are playing in this basement, one day after the next. 

Descending the stairs for the first time with a cold beer in hand, a shocked “oh” left my house as I saw the tiny room. There were still 15 minutes or so until Picture Parlour graced the stage at the early hour of 7:30pm, but there was already no room to breathe in the sold-out space. As the warmth from outside was trapped and only grew in the basement, heating up at a speed that the few pathetic fans couldn’t cope with and beer certainly wasn’t made for, I made a mental note to myself for the next day; ‘wear less clothing’. Around me, people were holding futile tepid cans to their foreheads, trying to cool themselves down and act like this wasn’t maybe the worst place in the world to be right now as the beautiful sun beat down on the Soho street above.

But as the band pushed their way through the crowd, parting us like an eager red sea, any pessimism burnt away. Launching right into ‘Moon Tonic’, Katherine Parlour commanded the room with her swaggering vocals that are utterly made for that job. She’s a lead singer built to be a star, and all you can do is stand there, mouth open at her power and wonder at what early age she realised she could sing like that. It’s funny to think about her getting up on primary school talent show stages and letting rip a voice that should have existed back in the 1960s, not in Liverpool in the early 2000s. I thought about how my colleague, Dale, once said with deadpan seriousness that he would pay them hundreds just to do a Led Zeppelin cover to prove no one else could do it better.

Within my first listens of Face In The Picture, I knew it would be one of my top releases of the year. Getting to hear those songs live, especially a rousing performance of the emotive and angst ‘Ronnie’, only solidified that. And as they even treated the crowd to some new stuff right there at the launch party for their first release, there’s no doubt that more things are to come.

Hopefully, they come in bigger rooms. By the time the final applause comes, it’s hard to get our hands to make any noise that doesn’t sound like two wet fish being slapped together. The band said, “Come hang out with us at the pub over the road”, and the idea of sitting on the curb with a cold beer has never, ever sounded better.

It sounded so good, in fact, that the next day, back for round two, I texted Bree, “Wanna meet early and get a drink at the pub? 6:45ish?” I’d learnt all my lessons from the night before – cooler clothes, higher shoes to see over the crowd, get in early for a good spot, don’t get stuck next to a speaker. These are things it usually takes months, maybe years, to learn as London’s immense mass of venues makes it a rarity that you’re ever back at the same one soon enough to properly learn your lesson or hold yourself accountable for forgetting it. But with only a 24-hour difference, there was no excuse. As I walked in and up to the bar at the back of the shop, manned by the same bartender as the night before, the deja vu hit us both at once.

Back in the same room, I looked around to see if I could spot anyone else haunting the venue from the night before, too drawn in by two of the country’s most exciting new acts to be called away by any other plans. But before I could scan all the faces, the lights went out, and the band came out, cutting the same path through their audience as their predecessors.

Joined by Cosmorat, who helped them create the mini album, Fräulein played the entirety of Sink Or Swim in order, even including all the weird little interludes and asking their crowd to provide the screams and field recordings captured on the record. Once again, it’s a release that immediately hit me as one set to be a highlight, and once again, that point was proved. I wrote in my review that Joni Samuels has one of the best voices in rock currently, and I felt like patting myself on the back for the correct observation each time her powerful belt ripped through the room, but instead, I just stood there awed like the rest of them.

While Picture Parlour played new material, Fräulein dedicated the end of their show to oldies at an album release show that felt perfectly intimate in the tiny space. They thanked their family in the crowd and played requests of some of their first-ever singles as gratitude to the original fans who had bagged themselves a ticket and vinyl bundle to be here.

It was a moment of real celebration. Both the gigs were. Not just because both bands have just released stellar works but because on two random weeknights, one venue was packed out with fans desperate to see two emerging talents. If this was just one place, what else was going on in the hundreds of other rooms across the city? If I kept going back to that basement, week upon week forever, what other future stars would I catch? As I climbed back up the stairs for the second time and emerged into the welcome breeze of a perfect summer evening, I have no regrets about how I’ve spent my time.