SOAK steps up to bigger things with full band Latitude 2015 set

SOAK could’ve been forgiven for being lacklustre during her opening set in the cavernous 6Music tent at this year’s Latitude. Bridie Monds-Watson has just arrived back from a solo tour of the US, straight into duo performances at the Suffolk bash and its sister event in Dublin, Longtitude. She even revealed to DIY before today’s show that she’s running on zero sleep.

Despite this, the introduction of a band to SOAK’s live show serves to beef up her sound to the point where it twists and turns its way into something far from her recorded output, and at times even to the point where it’s reminiscent of Sigur Rós.

The set zig-zags between a softer acoustic style, and reverb-drenched, ambient sounds, with ‘Sea Creatures’, a song SOAK wrote when she was 14, brilliantly bolstered by her two new bandmates. SOAK commented that the full band show is “a lot more energetic”, and that the crowd tend to “let loose”, and her words ring true, with none of the cobwebs that normally accompany a midday festival set.

The step up SOAK has made from her Lake Stage set at Latitude 2014 is a good marker of how far she has come in the past year, and the conviction with which the set is carried out indicates this pattern is set to continue.