It’s 8pm on a Friday and I’m at the foot of The White Hotel’s stage, gazing at mark william lewis’ pedalboard. “It’s rare to see a setup with no distortion”, a guy who’s travelled all the way from Burnley to catch the gig says to me. “Yeah. There’s a fuzz pedal, but I guess he’s not that heavy. Makes sense”, I reply. But when william lewis takes the stage, and turns ‘Socialising’, a subdued track from his self-titled debut album, into a loud and doom-y dream-pop banger, me and my friend from Burnley are quickly proved wrong. Don’t be fooled by the Rimbaud-reading-depressed-vampire aesthetic inherent in mark william lewis’ brand of bleak-pop, because tonight he is a much different (and far heavier) artist live.
mark william lewis has made a name for himself writing quiet yet meticulously constructed ballads about love, connection, sadness, and the heaviness of death – all of which he delivers in a recognisable gravelly sprechgesang. His fans are devoted to his ability to capture and bottle these hard-to-express emotions, as well as his mercurial approach to genre, while his haters lump him in a post-Dean Blunt pastiche scene that includes artists such as Copenhagen’s GB or London’s Eterna.
His collaborations are abundant, ranging from American rapper MIKE to bar italia frontwoman Nina Cristante (the latter of which he spent considerable time playing shows with on South London’s venue circuit). After releasing several singles, an EP, and a debut album across the early 2020s, he also became the first artist to release a non-soundtrack album on A24 Music (film company A24’s music imprint), last year’s self-titled mark william lewis.
Tonight’s venue, The White Hotel, puts on both legendary club nights (where else can you party until 8am?) as well as gigs. Midway through the set, william lewis says he loves Manchester, and the crowd shouts back “we’re in Salford!”. The venue is bleak, strange, and incredibly beautiful, which means it’s a good fit for everything mark william lewis.
For the venue’s gig-going demographic, it’s a pretty routine crowd tonight; there’s the occasional Dad-in-fisherman-beanie, mysterious girls who wear fur coats and have hair like Ivy Wolk; and the occasional UoM student, who is easy to spot because they are probably here in groups of one or two (their flatmates would rather spend their Friday night going out than watching melancholy alt music, like any self-respecting person).
The White Hotel is also one of those rare venues where you can go see an artist you don’t know and leave completely galvanised; their line-ups, promoters and choice of support acts are unrivalled. Tonight’s support, Danish singer Alba Akvama, is a case in point. A recent graduate of Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Akvama lays down hypnagogic open-tuning pop on a left-handed guitar, her strings flipped upside down. Flitting between piano and guitar, Akvama is backed by a saxophonist and sometimes guitarist, who adds a layer of dewy-eyed texture to her hushed, introspective music.
It’s slow and beguiling; exactly the type of vibe expected from william lewis’ set. He and his band – mark william lewis (bald), drummer (not bald; short hair), and guitarist and bassist (lots of hair between them) – take the stage with some intro music that sounds like a gamelan doing an impression of a slot machine. They launch into ‘Socialising’, and then ‘Cold Paris Vogue’, a cut from one of william lewis’ first EPs, and the crowd is moving with real devotion. On ‘Cold Paris Vogue’, william lewis takes the time to back out a harmonica, a feature of his music that begs the obvious Bob Dylan/Neil Young shout.
But the true standouts are the moments when william lewis and his band start to work off one another, like in the fuzzed-out breakdowns on ‘Brain’, which are even more propulsive with the live band, or the janky unison on ‘Spit’. The set ends and I’m hit with the not-so-familiar brightness of The White Hotel’s walls. As I leave, I’m not sure if the cold, dark walk back through Salford feels so fitting for mark william lewis’ music anymore.
