Yazmin Lacey @ Electric Brixton (06.03.26)
Last Friday, Yazmin Lacey took London into a more lucid state of dreaming. Performing her second soul album, Teal Dreams, at the well-loved Electric, Brixton, the show perfectly launched the transition from a relentless rainy season into the sunnier days of Spring with soul, jazz and lovers rock.
The set design was kept simple with the lighting flitting between a spiritual purple and the title teal, at times reflecting an ocean of joyful faces in the crowd. The stage boasted an acoustic drum kit, three backing singers (and a cluster of water bottles), keys, a bass and an electric guitar, with Lacey centred as the loving lead. It was clear from the beginning that intimacy was to remain the key focus, and so it did. As I looked around me, almost everyone was coupled up or with close friends swaying to tropical lovers rock-inflected tunes.
Everything is a positive affirmation in Lacey’s world, and I think that’s why, perhaps for most of the set, it was mellow by commanding presence. Lacey casually appeared on stage, draped in an earth-toned palette, wearing pleated khaki cargos and a brown-sleeved top, looking as tall as a tree adorned with gold. Even from a distance, you could constantly make out her genuinely glittering smile.
She began with "Where did you go?”, from Voice Notes, before softly launching into the more upbeat “Teal Dreams”, which seamlessly blended into “Wild Things”, with a funky guitar melody punctuating both with a mellow bounce. Lacey’s dialogue mottled the show with sentiment and light-heartedness. “Literally, I’m a product of Lovers Rock. My parents met at a house party, and next thing you know, I was here”, she shared before delivering “Love Is Like The Ghetto”.
One detail I kept noticing was the ability of the songs to melt into one another, like “Love Is Like The Ghetto” into “Wallpaper”, to the point where I forgot that they were, in fact, separate songs. It gave the impression of one long, unending groove, cocooned in the warmth of her voice, rather than being jolted back and forth between the order in which the songs appear on the album.
Ife Ogunjobi, a member of the esteemed Ezra Collective, was welcomed onto stage as the first special guest of the night, ushered in with gratitude by Lacey, before proceeding to provide a husky trumpet injection onto the well-loved track, “Morning Matters”. I was surprised more people weren’t singing along, but there was a sincere applause for the trumpet solo, which goes to show that when the instrumentals danced with Lacey’s grooves, it created moments of magic that remain.
“I write so much about romantic relationships: the good ones, the bad ones, the ugly ones, whatever… But some relationships in my life have stood the test of time, so I wanted to write a song about friendship. It was really special when I hit up my friend Tyson.” “Water” was one of the most moving pieces performed that night, purely because it was hard to differentiate Yazmin’s voice from Tyson’s. This motif of being unable to pinpoint where one thing begins and ends seemed to carry a spontaneous nature - a reminder that in life and by extension creativity, merging is authentic and inevitable when all the elements align with purpose and sincerity. The call-and-response between the two artists and friends made public an existential musing on the changing tides of life that felt incredibly personal to witness, though we didn’t feel we were interrupting the moment because we were made to feel deliberately involved. Lacey urged in fact, "If you want to cry to it, laugh to it - it's yours now, it’s ours now.”
It was only fitting that after “Water”, Lacey went on to explain how, in “Longest Way Round”, the rain you hear in the song was actually recorded in Lisbon. The theme of water was present throughout, yet I felt that, since this was the most explicit mention, it would’ve been charming to visually reinforce it to fully indulge its sentiment. Following on was “Worlds Apart”, and it’s in this performance that Lacey’s care-worn, knowing voice really peaks. It certainly felt as though it were the apex of her presence.
Although she’s not an artist who necessarily needs much stage movement to engage the crowd, she exudes a level of emotional charisma, conveyed through her arm gestures and smiles throughout most of her phrases. Looking around, I noticed how the demographic of the audience itself was such a range between younger and older people, and there being such an absence of glaring phone screens permeating through the darkness, shows how even in a contemporary venue, Lacey’s voice and rhythms are built to command ultimate presence, as mellow and light as she is. I imagined how wonderful it would’ve been to hear this album in the setting of a chapel, where its acoustics would’ve complemented her softness so intentionally.
For the most part, the crowd was mellow and swaying, up until it came to “Two Steps" and aren't-you-lucky-to-have-me energy in “Ain’t I Good For You”, which encouraged a strong boogie. Since these songs were more upbeat than the former, there were prolonged moments in which the vocal pitch was off, although I don’t think much attention was paid to that. It was just difficult to restrain any sort of movement when seduced by those basslines.
The show closed on a high note, with “God Gave Me Feet For Dancing”, made in collaboration with Ezra Collective, raising spirits through the roof. Whilst the whole show was mellow, by this point, movement was inevitable, fitting for the song's contents. The final song, performed with an array of young vocalists, was a nostalgic rendering of “The Feels,” quite literally where we left off emotionally as we exited the venue, grounded and hopeful as we filtered out into the streets of Brixton.
Words: Sakithya Sothinathan
Pictures: Dom Le Brun
