Night Tapes Tickets at The Sound House

Elusive London based 3-piece Night Tapes, made up of Iiris Vesik, Max Doohan and Sam Richards.

Most bands would say their music is a product of their environment, but it’s true for none more than Night Tapes. On the London trio’s extraordinary, dazzling debut album, 'portals//polarities', the band take you inside the places and sounds of its creation around the globe.

Mixing personal and political, Night Tapes' music thrives on humanity and connection. Making music together in a shared house in south east London, the songs of Iiris Vesik, Max Doohan and Sam “Richie” Richards had to be quiet to avoid disturbing neighbours. “It was about capturing the vibe of the house,” Vesik remembers, then realising that the songs “became time capsules of the different places we were.” For Richards, each song comes with a specific and clear memory of the surroundings in which it was created. “It feels like a flipbook of that time,” he says.

“The album is an exploration of energies and an exploration into my soul. I go into the spectrality of my being and into different polarities within myself. I would like to understand myself and to understand relationships I have with myself and others because I’m trying to change the small things in order to tackle the big ones. I’m just trying to be as honest as possible because lies are prisons. I’m from a country that used to be under authoritarian rule. I am really grateful to have been born in a free country and I value freedom above most things,” Estonian-born Iiris, who was in the womb during the Singing Revolution that freed her country, says of the record.

Three electronic producers with a penchant for analogue, Night Tapes exist in a world that is dreamy and widescreen with plenty of bite.

With portals//polarities, they have made an album that dreams big but is defined by how daringly human and real it is, capturing once-in-a-lifetime moments and happy accidents to make music that feels truly, beautifully alive.