Music review: Self Esteem, Bongo Club, Edinburgh

Arguably the breakout British pop star of the year, Rebecca "Self Esteem” Taylor put on an arena’s worth of show in a tiny basement club, writes David Pollock

Rebecca Taylor aka Self Esteem

Self Esteem, Bongo Club, Edinburgh *****

“Everyone knowing the words is my favourite thing in the world,” said Rebecca “Self Esteem” Taylor, still apparently overwhelmed by the skyrocketing praise and appreciation which has greeted last month’s second album Prioritise Pleasure. “Although sometimes I'm like, ‘these words, man...’ ”

The words are just one of the things which have made Taylor, the Rotherham-raised former member of indie-folk duo Slow Club, the breakout British pop star of the year.

By this point in the show she’d just finished recent single Moody, a furiously infectious pop groove about being an unrepentant “moody cow” (her words).

The song’s opening lines are “sexting you at the mental health talk seems counterproductive.” Those words, man. Everyone in the room loved them. Just they loved like the coda of the album’s title track – Taylor breathing a mantra of “I thought that you'd be kind to me” as her three backing singers leaned in for a group hug – or How Can I Help You’s drum-thundering, shoutalong chorus of “I don’t know shit!”, cathartically yelled back by the whole room.

Her lyrics are defiant, personal, amusing and fiercely insightful, taking in bad break-ups, mental health, female empowerment and toxic masculinity.

Every moment of her show was relentlessly fun, as she cycled through the tense, rattling riff of F***ing Wizardry, the oddly satisfying fusion of dubstep and Les Misérables-style vocals on Still Raining, and the bittersweet tenderness of The 345, written for a long-lost childhood friend who was here at the show.

Amid the raw live sound and the breathless dance sequences with her backing trio, this was an arena’s worth of show in a tiny basementclub.

As the music for I Do This All the Time, one of the signature songs of 2021, cut out and the crowd assisted her in a breathtaking acapella instead, Taylor seemed overwhelmed by the response. Everyone else knows she will be in concert halls soon enough.

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