I arrive at Victoria Coach Station at 19:30, the pitiful victim of a 13:45 National Express gone awry. Hurriedly, I stride towards the tube, refusing to miss the UK debut of Safe Mind, a glossy retrofuture synth-pop duo based in Massachusetts consisting of Boy Harsher’s Augustus Muller and cult bedroom pop idol Lucy, also known as Cooper B. Handy.
I was already a fan of Autonomy, Lucy and Boy Harsher’s 2022 collaborative track, a lyric from which Safe Mind is named after, and so I readily welcomed a full-length project from the new duo. Their debut single, the throbbing earworm that is 6’ Pole, has been a mainstay of my playlist since its release in September 2024, with the album, Cutting the Stone, releasing the following July.
More than anything, I’m excited to see how the band’s 1980s studio techno sheen will translate to the
small stage, unaccompanied by their hypnagogic 16mm music videos. The last time I watched a Lucy
set, it was just him and the instrumentals playing off his phone, during which time he deftly delivered
16 DIY pop gems in less than half an hour.
This time, however, the stage of Hackney’s Moth Club is adorned with multiple drum machines, synthesisers, and guitar pedals, all resting on robust black cases which juxtapose the kitsch golden spangle that adorns the back of the stage. As the flailing tassels shimmer, the anticipation in the room grows thick. Or may it’s just 300 throats exhaling the heady aroma of £6.50 pints. I scan the room, taking in the diverse crowd as they stand on the black-and-red-tiled floor and sit crammed into the maroon velour booths that line its right side. Before long, however, they’re all up and dancing to the sounds of vital, sentimental synthpop as it bounds off the room’s faded wood panelling.
Bass viciously thumps, vibrating the floor, my clothes, my ribcage, as Lucy’s voice, drowning in reverb, soars across the hall. Augustus masterfully manipulates several drum machines and a keyboard, deftly tapping out the anthemic synthlines the sold-out crowd has come to love as he jerks and bounces to the beat with unfaltering rhythm. Lucy does a twitchy, cautious sidestep as he searches for chords on his beautiful white six-string.
The true show begins, however, after the opening 2 songs, when Lucy places his guitar back in its wooden case and begins to move around freely. In a coy mumble, he tells us that we should feel free to do the same. As Augustus starts the backing track, Lucy repeatedly thrusts out his knees like a coquettish Elvis, these bizarre contortions punctuating his vocals as his chest swells and contracts with breath. He intersperses this move with rapid zigzags of his elbows whilst snapping his fingers and cautiously pogoing in place.
Safe Mind perform most of their LP, interludes included, finishing the set with their preliminary collaboration to rapturous applause, walking offstage with no encore after performing for little more than 30 minutes.
After the show, I chat with Augustus as he packs up his gear. He assures me that more music is on the way, but not soon, and, without a hint of humour or sarcasm in his voice, implores me not to listen to Cutting the Stone too much in case I tire of it. He shakes my hand, and I tell him that I hope they return to the UK. I say the same to Lucy, who jump scares me by exiting a toilet stall as I wash my hands.
I hover outside the venue, the time barely 21:35, chatting with fellow attendees about the show. Several people brought up the tangible sense of community surrounding this decidedly left-field music. Concerts like this are fascinating for an amateur anthropologist such as myself, who never takes for granted the chance to see first-hand what sort of people enjoy the same music I do, especially when so much contemporary fandom feels faceless and exclusively online. In this case, witnessing audience members boasting tabis, Discmans, John Maus tees and bleached eyebrows confirms to me that Lucy and Augustus’ lovechild is objectively cool music.
As the song goes, “memory’s a blessing in a safe mind,” and, trite as it may be, my newly forged memories of being surrounded by the most interesting people in the world, euphoric and drowning in bass, are blessings indeed.
Words by Josef Swindell
Image courtesy of Aleksandr Popov via Unsplash. No changes have been made to this image.
