PLEASE NOTE: For the safety of our customers, we will be requiring proof of full COVID vaccination (or negative rapid COVID test), to enter the venue until further notice. More details at holocene.org/vaccine An early show with Blood Red Shoes! GHOSTS ON TAPE is a huge jump into new terrain for Blood Red Shoes. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves. “We’ve always been outsiders right from the very beginning” says Steven. Starting out in the DIY punk scene which completely rejected them for not fitting the mould, they wrote “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea” as a f-you to small mindedness of that exact scene. “Then all of a sudden we were playing indie disco nights where we basically came across like Slayer” laughs Laura-Mary. Too heavy for the indie scene, too punk for the pop kids, too melodic for the hipster punks and too danceable for the hard rockers, Blood Red Shoes have always been a confusing proposition. Over time that rejection and outsiderdom is something they have come to accept and love. “This album is really about us asserting ourselves as our own little island”, declares Steven. “We have made an entire career out of being told what we are “not”, of being rejected, of not fitting in, and this album is us deliberately pushing into all of our strangeness, emphasising all of the things that make us different”. Obsessed by true crime and murder podcasts, many songs on the record are told in character and explore the dark psyche of those at the pinnacle of outsiderdom: serial killers. GHOSTS ON TAPE paints a picture of a dark and unsettling world, starting with the apocalyptic, discordant piano epic “COMPLY”, through the Tears For Fears-indebted “MORBID FASCINATION” and ending on “FOUR TWO SEVEN”, a haunting and personal take on the act of holding onto the hurt of a broken relationship because hurt is the only shred of it you have left. It is the sound of a unified and confident duo who know exactly who they are, even if the wider world doesn’t really get it. The sound of two people who have spent their entire adult lives making music together and who, more than ever, are finding new pathways for their creativity. “Ultimately this album is an invitation”, explains Steven. “It’s us saying, this is our world, these are our darkest thoughts and feelings - our ghosts - caught on tape. You are welcome to join us. Come and embrace the strange”. Mz Neon is a genre bending punk chanteuse turned rap mistress based in Los Angeles by way of Brooklyn, NYC. A lyrical provocateur, Mz Neon confronts issues of identity, sexuality, politics, spirituality and lived experiences as a trans-femme-fatale with a punk rock pedigree. She is a triple threat of sharp wit, hypnotic sensuality and musical virtuosity with a tough yet unapologetic ownership of her own visceral vulnerability.