Satin bomber jacket slipping from her shoulders, Biig Piig is going all out – she’s shimmying left, shimmying right, flipping her hair, pogoing at the mic stand. Opening track 4AM, with its muted, just-left-the-club vibe, doesn’t really call for such a full-throttle show, but the Irish alt-pop musician – AKA Jessica Smyth – is selling it as a floor-filler. “I know you don’t want to be alone,” she croons, her voice featherlight, pumping a fist in the air.
It is a night of mixed messages. Biig Piig’s headline tour is in celebration of her long-awaited debut album 11:11, but only a handful of those songs are scattered through a setlist that spans three EPs, a mixtape, and assorted other singles, and it severs the narrative thread connecting them.
Across that prolific, seven-year discography, Biig Piig has two modes: chilled-out, atmospheric songs influenced by trip-hop, R&B and jazz, and club-ready dance tracks with strobing synth and drum’n’bass drops. This evening, despite Smyth’s committed performance, she doesn’t find a balance between the two. Producer Mac Wetha’s warm-up set was high BPM bangers only, but Smyth takes the stage to thrumming, ambient sounds and spends the first 30 minutes of her own show trying to add unnecessary muscle to her quieter material.
Her band – a bassist/saxophonist and drummer – add interesting detail to some of those songs; moody Roses and Gold gets a great sax solo, and early track Perdida’s introspective chorus – “I just wanna lay here, smoke my cig and drink my wine” – wins a gentle singalong. But the nuances of album track One Way Ticket gets lost in the mix, leaving an up-for-it crowd fidgeting.
Smyth’s high-energy antics fall into place on a closing run of dance tracks. A wind machine is put to perfect use for new singles Favourite Girl, with its kitschy handclaps, and the heated, swaggering Decimal. She belts the chorus to 2020 hit Switch, and it comes from the gut. “This record is about change, how we transform,” she told the crowd earlier; from this charismatic yet somewhat cautious show, it seems Biig Piig is still finding her final form.
• Biig Piig is touring the UK until 27 February
