Pink Eye Club is the work of South London’s one-man-disco-machine and self-confessed nerd Haydn Davies. He crafts high-energy electronic music on a laptop and has been showcasing his explosive live sets at the packed-out regular club nights he runs, ‘Pink Eye’s Sunday Roast’ at Windmill, Brixton and ‘Pink Eye’s Paradise’ at The George Tavern, Stepney Green, and across London as support to the likes of Go Chi Minh, Meatraffle, Alien Chicks & Human Interest.
Pink Eye Club’s sound channels the euphoric high of a Saturday night out following the drudgery of a 9-5 week, it’s a heady sound influenced by a love of club and dance culture, the Pet Shops Boys, disco, and all things pop, whilst his quintessentially British lyricism tells relatable stories of everyday life, with its touchstones sitting somewhere between the gritty realism of Sleaford Mod’s disillusion and The Streets’ savvy and witty urban observations.
On Pink Eye Club’s aptly titled debut album Disco Reality we have the party beats of the self-explanatory ‘Same Job For Three Years,’ relaying the soul destroying experience of working in a boring job for a very long time, “specifically in retail” adds Haydn; whilst the dark disco of ‘Suicidal In A Rural Town’ explores what Haydn candidly describes as “a mental breakdown that I had whilst living in my home town,” both touching on how life can be lived in a continued rut. Whilst ‘Art School F**ckers’ humorously projects these frustrations at a certain pretentious group, blissfully unaware of such struggles, and told through the narrative of a workers vs students clash in
daily South London life.
Elsewhere on the album, Haydn’s observations face outward, on the high energy pop of ‘You Seemed Like A Nice Guy’ the hateful far right get a kicking as he explores the modern phenomenon of uncovering a person’s real character via their social media feed…”You seemed like a nice guy but I went on your Facebook page and it was full of loads of racist shite” (see also ‘Angry Things On The Internet’), whilst the club classic ‘100% Heterosexual Pissing Contest’ takes aim at toxic masculinity (“It’s a song about people who boast about their body count, the drugs they take and anything else really. If you have to boast about these things, then you’re a bit boring really” explains Haydn).
The album’s closing 90s club banger ‘No Room For Gatekeeping’ needs a special mention as it is probably the biggest insight into Haydn’s soul and his musical manifesto. It’s a song Haydn describes as “about going to raves and the feeling of inclusivity and limitless possibility that you get on the dance floor” with the wonderful opening line “we’re having a party, and everyone’s invited.”
Whilst Pink Eye Club’s lyrical stream of consciousness rallying against the ills of society seem a juxtaposition to the banging club tunes that soundtrack them, they work as one. The drudgery of life and wider societal issues that we all face daily make that Saturday night release and musical escapism so utterly vital, and Pink Eye Club’s vitriolic monologues and big club tunes offering a most welcome exorcism of life’s ills (if only for a little while).
Pink Eye Club created Disco Reality from his bedroom during lockdown using a Logic Pro X, Native Instruments Komplete 13 and a keyboard, with the album’s guitar riffs and chords played then transferred into Logic. It is released on 14 July via London label Blang Records.
SOURCE: Official Bio
Featured image by Camille Alexander.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/PinkEyeClub/
https://www.instagram.com/pinkeyeclub/
https://pinkeyeclub.bandcamp.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2QURg1hthLGm440LRtgKe6?si=XP-hLEsSS2qLEL3Ais_zGA