BY CEVAT BARIŞ YILMAZ (CS/II)
baris.yilmaz@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
It’s always a special moment when you find new music that you like when you’re checking out a playlist on Spotify, letting YouTube autoplay some songs for you or listening to a radio station; but it’s even more special when you find yourself at a concert given by a very talented musician you hadn’t heard before, in the company of all the other witnesses of that performance.
It was the last day of Pukkelpop 2016 when I found myself in a moment of madness. After four days of concerts, I was trying to discover one last gem at this music festival in Belgium. Wolfmother had performed a killer concert, I’d had a chance to see Alison Mosshart live for the first time, I’d become Bring Me The Horizon’s latest fan after hearing “True Friends,” and had experienced so many other special moments that I can’t count them all.
However, for some reason I still wasn’t satisfied, or I maybe I just wanted to end the festival on a climax. Anyhow, after a few disappointing choices, I decided to try the Lift stage, where not-so-well-known bands usually play. There, I saw this woman with curly hair and an amazing voice: Isobel Beardshaw, or, as she prefers to be called, Izzy Bizu. I don’t recall all the songs she performed that night, but I do remember “White Tiger,” which made me sure that this concert was better than anything I could have asked for as an ending.
This September, Izzy Bizu released her first album, “A Moment of Madness,” comprising 17 songs. It was really special for me to listen to it just a week after that night at Pukkelpop. As it’s a fusion album, which keeps going back and forth between soul, pop, funk and jazz, exploring and digging into each song was a unique musical experience.
The album begins with “Diamond,” which incidentally is the only song among the 17 where Izzy was part of writing process. It provides a tranquil start, with repetitive guitar chords, basic bass riffs and the accompaniment of the keyboard. While it can be criticized as offering an unassuming beginning for the album, it’s at the center of the different styles of all the songs to come and shows different aspects of Izzy’s vocals. Thus, I think it’s actually not a bad choice for the first track.
Next comes “White Tiger,” my favorite song at the concert. Although it has some really catchy parts as well as good vocals, it falls short in terms of the lyrics and has too many “drop-offs” for a potential hit; it even ends on one of these drop-offs, which leaves a bittersweet taste behind. It’s still a good song for live performances, but I think the album version doesn’t really fulfill its potential.
Finally I want to mention “Skinny,” which comes right after “White Tiger” and is in my view the best song on the album. It’s the perfect synthesis of three different genres: a conjunction of a funk bass, a soul guitar and jazzy brass instruments, led by Izzy’s unique vocals taken to their limits.
Both being at Izzy Bizu’s concert and listening to her debut album were exciting for me. She is just 22 years old, so I really wonder how her fusional music style will take shape as her career continues; I can’t wait to listen to her next albums and see her perform on bigger stages with larger audiences in the future.