Writer Jasmine Khan / Photographers Khali Ackford & Luke Tubbs
**Grove is playing at the Hare & Hounds on Tuesday 31 January, as part of Independent Venue Week – click here for tickets**
“No one really knows who I am,” says Grove in the humblest of tones. I try not to laugh. After Supersonic Festival, all the BR queers know about Grove – I had to fight several of them off just to secure this interview. Not to mention they played Glastonbury last year.
For those of you who don’t know, Grove is an experimental punk-infused force of nature. The breadth of their sonic exploration includes elements of dancehall, bass, and jungle. But what stands out beyond their complex, erratic, and magnetic sound is how Grove seems to ignite an audiences’ soul.
“With the nature of being a performer, there’s the stage and then there’s the audience,” explains Grove. “But there’s also this palpable energy. It sometimes feels like there’s a force wall that needs to be broken.”
I’m sure we’ve all felt it in the crowd at a gig, the tension between the stage and the floor. When it disintegrates and the audience and performance become one, that’s when music truly fulfils its human purpose.
At Grove’s performances, “You’re not just watching the show, you are the show.” Indeed they emphasise, “We are the show.”
It’s “a collective energy”, one that’s designed to be emotionally and spiritually fulfilling and one which Grove hopes “can be transformed into other aspects of our lives.”
On this point transforming or perhaps transferring energy, Grove is resolute: “People need to be reminded of that, I need to be reminded of that, that we are powerful people, that our energy and our actions hold, especially in all this…” They pause and let out an extended sigh, struggling to find an apt word they settle on, “…social/political climate that we find ourselves in.”
Grove doesn’t sound defeated, but they do sound tired, tired of complaining about the state of the country as I’m sure we all are.
When I ask about what happens to the collective energy Grove builds with their audience and where it goes they say, “the energy at the beginning is a bit more sinister, then building it up to that crescendo point of being like, OK we are all in this, let’s throw everything we have got into this moment.
“I use the concept of catharsis a lot, in terms of a building of energy and then a release. I think I’ve come to realise that the release isn’t meant to be one moment, but taken into the world.”
Grove isn’t massively specific about what we’re meant to do with the energy they gift us at their performances, but I think that’s their point. It’s a gift, it’s for our own purposes; spare motivation to be stored for a rainy day.
Grove explains, after their gigs, the ones which truly feel collaborative, they love connecting with more experienced punks who often have snippets of wisdom about how to balance action with reflection. They also shout out their regular support EJ:AKIN, “a beautifully grounding person to travel and perform with.”
Grove recently performed at Decolonise Fest in London, a non-profit DIY punk festival ‘created by and for punxs of colour’ and it’s abundantly clear through their work and our on-going conversation, that Grove is heavily focused on activism and collaboration.
However, Grove also makes it abundantly clear that they do not (and never could) represent all queer people of colour: “I represent myself at that given time, and I don’t try to hold myself to any past or future version of myself.
“I do take on those labels, but I don’t claim to speak for everybody.”
They continue: “I’ve even come to reconsider the whole masculine and feminine energy thing”, which was a prevalent line in bios and reviews with Grove until recently, “because I think as part of my journey with gender exploration, masculine and feminine for me are so reductive in and of themselves.
“The music that I make reflects how I view gender – you just chuck it all in a pot and see what happens.
“You don’t need to label it, it’s more about the holistic experience of what you’re listening to.”
Getting back to what we’ll be listening to, I’m keen to ascertain whether we can expect anything beyond Grove’s typical experiential gig when they perform in Brum shortly.
“I’m going to be trying out some new tunes from an upcoming release,” says Grove. “It’s going to be very exciting and a lot more politically focused, a small body of work.”
And how would Mx Grove like their audience to show up?
“I want people to bring themselves authentically, unbridle themselves from the weight of being perceived. Move your limbs in ways you’ve never done before.
“If that’s not your thing just listen attentively, and engage in whatever way that means to you, that would be dreamy.”
I try to get a date for their upcoming ‘more politically focused release’ but Grove tuts at me and laughs it off, providing an answer almost as specific as their gender identity. “There’s no set date, it’ll be released sometime after March.” So, sometime between March and the end of time then?
I can’t wait.
Finally, I need to know whether Grove’s Spotify bio, which says ‘legendary pussy music’, is about their sound or themselves. Grove laughs again, louder this time: “I never expected anyone to actually mention it, but my friend Annie said it.
Grove insists it’s about the music. But, I’ll continue to insist it’s about both.
You can catch Grove, said legendary pussy (music), at the Hare and Hounds on Tuesday 31 January – tickets priced at £7.00 as part of Independent Venue Week.
For tickets to Grove’s upcoming Hare and Hounds show go to: www.independentvenueweek.com/uk/show/grove
For more from Grove go to: www.theyisgrove.com
For more from Hare and Hounds go to: www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk
For more from independent venue week go to: www.independentvenueweek.com/uk