Low Island return to Teddies

Alex Tester, Director of Music at St Edward’s, writes about the latest Teddies Big Gig with OSE Low Island:

What a treat it was to welcome back three OSE pupils of the School to perform at our headline gig for the Weekends programme this term. Low Island is a four-piece band that are unified in one direction: to create soundscapes and ambient tracks that explore some beautiful layering of textures and which exploit the merging of electronic and acoustic genres.

The 75 minute set was a precursor to some very large gigs: they headline festivals in Brighton, London and Oxford over coming months, and so we felt really lucky in inviting and having them back to the North Wall.

The packed house, a real mixture of pupils, parents and staff, enjoyed the power of a very well thought out set, enjoying more conventionally vocal-based tracks contrasted with experimental electronically sampled material. By the end of the gig, the whole audience were on their feet, grabbing onto the momentum of each song, building to the conclusion of the final track.

This is a band obviously going somewhere: having had good recent airplay on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 6, and from the evidence of Saturday, they look to be on the edge of something rather big. Saturday night was a chance for us to showcase them, but also for them to inspire the next generation of Teddies pupils.