The popular presenter spoke about what led him to start the sessions stating “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was like, everybody else in lockdown. I had nothing else to do. I thought I was going to start DJing online and then within weeks and then months, it turned into such a massive party.” The partying has continued for many years, with Isolation Nation hosting events at The Roundhouse, Beautiful Days festival, Bestival and many more. 

As we approach the festive season, the ‘Say Yes To The Dress’ show host, will be hosting the Isolation Nation Christmas Ball. This will be an over-18s club night at the O2 in Manchester. Tickets are available for this here

Watch as Gok Wan gives a tour of The Roundhouse at the Isolation Nation event earlier this year.

The former theatre known as ‘Camden Palace’ which opened in 1900 is based in Camden Town, London and was turned into The Camden Hippodrome, The Music Machine and in 2004, Koko. This was following Mint Entertainment and Oliver Bengough’s lengthy purchase and extensive restoration.

In 2020, post the first lockdown, Gok Wan, the multifaceted fashionista released his debut single “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” which features Craig Knight and Kele Le Roc. He later received slots to play his original mixes on Select Radio, landing a fortnightly hour show of house music as well as a slot on Gaydio and some one-off episodes, picking his favourite tracks of all his years on BBC Radio 2.

Two years ago, the multi-award-winning Television Presenter was also awarded an MBE for his services to fashion and social awareness stating “It was an experience I will never forget. I feel incredibly honoured to be awarded an MBE”. He has previously won awards for UK Television Presenter with The Royal Television Society (Best Lifestyle Programme), Best Factual Entertainment Award with the TV Choice Awards and a media award with The British Hairdressing Awards. 

See the footage below of last Saturday’s first Koko show

Get tickets for the Isolation Nation Koko show here

Toying with dark sensualness, the first half of the song, “Playboy” starts with a dissonant melody with Shygirl cooling rapping over the top. In the video, a bikini-clad woman spins around a pole in a dark room an eerie face-printed mask obscuring her face. Shy introduces the second half of the song by uttering, “Wait let me just change positions quickly”, the beat quickening with the singer adopting a breathier vocal style. The video for the “Positions” portion features two tattooed men wrestling on a dry grassy football pitch.

Watch the video below:

Irish singer Cosha, English record producer Karma Kid, and English producer to the stars Mura Masa all worked with the singer on the single. London-based photographer Samuel Ibram teamed up with Shygirl once again for the haunting video. He previously directed the video for Shygirl and Björk’s “Woe (I See It From Your Side)” as well as photographed Shy for the cover for Nymph.

Nymph_o, the deluxe version of Shygirl’s 2022 debut album, Nymph, will be available on streaming on the 14^th of this month. The album will contain reimagines and remixes of songs on the original LP as well as some brand-new tracks like “Playboy/Positions”. So far, Shygirl has released three other songs that will feature on Nymph_o: a club mix of “Poison”, a reimagining of “Heaven” featuring the celestial vocals of alt R&B singer Tinashe, and Björk’s ethereal remix “Woe (I See It From Your Side)”. The genre-bending LP will also feature Eartheater and Arca. To preorder the album click here.

Southeast London rapper, DJ, and singer-songwriter Blane Muise, better known as Shygirl, entered the scene in 2017 receiving praise for her unique deconstructed club and experimental hip hop sound. Her debut EP Cruel Practice and her sophomore EP Alias caught the attention of Pitchfork, NME, Vogue, and Crack Magazine.

Currently, Shygirl is performing in North America on her Nymph World Tour. She will be performing at several festivals later this summer including Wide Awake Festival, Parklife, Flow Festival, and Øyafestivalen. For tickets see here.

For Shygirl’s UK & Europe dates see below:

27/05/23 – Wide Awake Festival – London
10/06 – Parklife – Manchester
09/08 – Øyafestivalen – Oslo
11/08 – Flow Festival – Helsinki

On “✨ mum is calling ✨” the DJs mix samples of distorted Siri voices with playful deconstructed club beats to create a buoyant party track. Their 7^th EP, bubbling with energetic glitch-pop beats and autotuned vocals, is leading the way toward a new generation of dance music fused with cyberspace and packed with digital references.

The video for✨ mum is calling ✨”, released on the 30^th March, starts in portrait mode mimicking how videos are recorded on a phone. Two masked figures are depicted dancing to the track disorientating the viewer with the heavy use of transitions and the expanding aspect ratio. The group also cheekily uses deep fakes on a stock image to voice ‘mum’ and Memojis to voice their response. Last month, Two Shell released music videos for “love him”, “i m e s s a g e”, and “♡here4u♡” from Lil Spirits.

Two Shell have caught the media’s attention through their mysterious antics and bubblegum bass soundscape since their formation in 2019. They were featured on this year’s NME 100 as well as Pitchfork’s list of Rising Artists Shaping the Future of Music.

The identity of the two performers is clouded in secrecy with the duo using fluffy hats, masks, and shades to hide their faces when they perform. Some fans are even convinced that they send random stand-ins to mime along to their sets at gigs like the ground-breaking DJ SOPHIE did back in 2014. Their use of baby face filters and DALL-E mini to create AI-generated images for their EP art and press images showcases how their identity is intertwined with internet culture. Two Shell rarely accept interviews – their first-ever interview with The Face has now been “destroyed”.

Never failing to keep their fans on their toes, Two Shell have announced they will be playing four shows all on the same night – the 22^nd April – in London. They will be performing at Wide Awake Festival, an independent festival that showcases up-and-coming talent, in London next month. The duo are also on the line-up for the German music festival Melt this Summer.

See here for tickets.

For full dates see below:

14/04/23 – Oxi – Berlin
22/04 – 60 Dock Road – London
22/04 – Forevergood – London
22/04 – Laylow – London
22/04 – Dalson Den
27/05 – Wide Awake – London
8/06 – Melt – Leipzeig

The album is out on Modern Love, a label Andy has been releasing music on since as early as 2005 towards the start of his career. The nine-track affair spanning 40 minutes in duration provides the listener with a mixture of late-night techno club songs intertwined with ambient records influenced by the likes of UK bass and future garage genres. Andy also enlists a frequent collaborator and long-time family friend Alison Skidmore for the album. Featuring on five tracks including the single ‘The beginning’, his old piano teacher was one of Andy’s first journey into using vocals in his work.

Physicals for the album are available coloured/black vinyl (mastered by Rashad Becker) and CD, all with limited availability on Bookmat. The retailer also describes the songs on the album as “desolate, melancholy, defiant, beautiful – often all at once”, adding to “a run of releases that gradually untangled complex ideas into a singular, chaotic body of work”. This is Andy’s fifth LP, with no signs of slowing down the pace of his expressionist and innovative nature in this body of work. Listen to the album today below.

Lasting Lover came out earlier this month, on September 5th, and was met with a positive reception. The song was originally written by Lewis Capaldi who sent it over to the chart topping DK Sigala to work on. Sigala said that the song ‘came to [him] as a ballad, just like an acoustic song with just guitar and his voice on it. [He] worked on it a bit and got in touch with James from there just to see if he wanted to sing it. It’s really cool to have him involved.’

James Arthur, winner of X Factor 2012, is equally excited about the project. He ‘really enjoyed working with Sigala on this absolute banger‘, calling him a ‘real G‘. James Arthur, who usually performs acoustic ballads like Say You Won’t Let Go and Can I Be Him, recognises that Lasting Lover is a ‘change of direction’ for him.

The song opens with a sample from MGMT’s Time To Pretend, and is an upbeat dance track fitting for an Ibizan club. Arthur’s vocals surprisingly work perfectly with this, resulting in an ‘emotional club banger‘ that gets your feet moving. The release comes after a series of successful collaborations on Sigala’s part, showing his ability to blend his signature house/EDM beats with a range of vocals.

Arthur and Sigala were forced to work on Lasting Lover over Zoom because of Lockdown restrictions. Eventually, the pair met in real life on the set for the music video and luckily ‘got on just as well in real life’. The chemistry between them can be felt in their Britain’s Got Talent performance, which was seamless and energetic.

Arthur said he had ‘so much fun’ throughout the performance while Sigala thanked BGT for having them and stated that it ‘felt so so good to get back on stage performing’. Let’s hope that the pair have many more opportunities to play this banger live in the future!

Felt so so good to get back on stage performing! Thank you for having us @BGT #LastingLover @JamesArthur23 https://t.co/9SHRAWl1Ph

— Sigala (@SigalaMusic) September 20, 2020

He explained that Be a Rebel was originally written for the last album, 2015’s Music Complete, but never made it on. Its new incarnation is a remix by Sumner himself, made during lockdown. Some fans have expressed disappointment that New Order’s long-awaited return only takes the form of an old album leftover being remixed, but nevertheless there is a buzz about it.

New Order rose like a phoenix from the ashes after the death of Ian Curtis and dissolution of Joy Division. After starting off in the shadow of their former band, New Order have managed to arguably surpass Joy Division in popularity.

Their first single Ceremony in 1981 used lyrics that Curtis had written a week before his death. This and their subsequent debut album, Movement, was fairly similar to the sound of Joy Division. Both Sumner and Hook seemed to be trying to emulate the dreariness of Curtis’ vocals and the lyrical content was equally dour.

It was after the band started spending time in New York City that they began to find their unique sound. The thriving underground club scene there in the early eighties was accompanied by the sounds of Chic, Sylvester and Afrika Bambaataa.

Sumner’s told Q magazine in 1991: ‘I literally saw the light when I was in New York with New Order and I went to this club… someone had spiked my drink with a tab of acid…and all of a sudden this electronic music – Giorgio Moroder, Afrika Bambaataa – made sense’. Sumner had seen the light, electronic dance music was the future.

From then on, New Order experimented more heavily with electronic equipment and synths, creating innovative dance tracks like Confusion and famously Blue Monday in 1983 that epitomise their fusion of post-punk and dance music. This movement from ‘dark gloomy gothic group‘ to ‘disco divas’ was described by Jon Savage as ‘incredible’. But the seeds may have been sown as early as the Joy Division days when Curtis used to bring Kraftwerk records to band rehearsals.

Blue Monday was New Order’s first big hit. That distinctive thumping dance beat from the drum machine and the video-game-like synths still get the crowds going. The iconic use of church organs gives the song a sense of reverence and Sumner’s vocals were by this time hitting the mark. This time there was no attempt to recreate Curtis’ voice because let’s face it, no one could.

With their 2015 release Complete Music, however, the band lost some of their early energy. Likewise, Be a Rebel is a pleasant listen, but ironically sounds more dated than their earlier output. Let’s hope the phoenix that is New Order will rise once again.