Single Review: Beija Flo - Heads or Tails

 

Originally from Essex, but now residing in Liverpool, Beija Flo is not your average musical artist. Ryan Doyle Elward takes a listen to her current single 'Heads or Tails' and tells us more. 

                                

With just a handful of releases from artist Beija Flo to gauge against, ‘Heads or Tails’ is by comparison a track-start sprint. At a little over a minute and a half, the single is anatomically simple, oscillating between two notes abreast with fuzz: a landscape which itself seems to say,this or that.

Across her musical corpus (since, she has art prints and poems as well) ‘Heads or Tails’ so far makes for one of the first of her songs to be relatively level front-to-back, unlike ‘Why?' -  A beautiful and brilliant demo that intensifies throughout its duration, or ‘One of Those Things’, which by song’s end becomes absolute theatre; a demonstration of how her  through controlled exasperation and how it can give velocity to whatever the content. It is a tidy pocket of energy that could have come borrowed, as the other side of one of the powerful mid-track shifts she so successfully exercises.

Beija Flo (📷 Graham Smillie)

And “whatever the content” is not an evaluation of lyrical arbitrariness either, because Beija Flo manages to imbue each of her songs with serious, thoughtful discussions, even if it is not always immediately recognisable. 

In ‘Heads or Tails,’ the line Heads I win, tails you lose seems to be playful banter, but more likely aims to describe circumstances where one person has all the power while the other will lose even with two possible outcomes. 

It is repeatedly these points in her music that are the greater deception. That, themes which appear to diverge are infact subtle and unobvious harmonies: they are the very means to boost the message.

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Beija Flo has been invited to join touring American New Wave trio, Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum on their debut U.K tour. Fronted by Michael C. Hall, best known for roles in Dexter and Six Feet Under, alongside his notable work on Broadway. Beija opens for them across the UK from next week as well as one date in Leeds with Seatbelts. Dates are listed below:

                                         NOVEMBER

      Wed 24th - w/Seatbelts - Headrow House, Leeds

Sat 27th - w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, Thekla Bristol

Sun 28th -w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, Rescue Rooms Nottingham

Mon 29th -w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, Night & Day Manchester

Tues 30th -w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, Bush Hall, London

                                                    

                                           DECEMBER

  Thurs 2nd - w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, Esquires Bedford

Fri 3rd - w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, The Castle & Falcon Birmingham

 Thurs 9th - w/Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, 24 Kitchen Street Liverpool

                

You can follow Beija Flo on Social Media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more updates.