Soft Riot (Release Show), Ubre Blanca + Meddicine

This is a record release show for the Soft Riot album The Outsider In The Mirrors.

Possession Records proudly present the new album by Soft Riot, entitled “The Outsider In The Mirrors”.

Soft Riot is the musical alter-ego of JJD. Canadian by birth and an ex-resident of London and Sheffield, he has now set up base in Glasgow. With over twenty years of playing in various post-punk and synth-punk styled bands, he has been crafting the stylised dark and psychedelic synth pop of Soft Riot since the early turn of the decade, releasing a slew of albums on a myriad of labels and touring obsessively around Europe and elsewhere.

“The Outsider In The Mirrors” is a consolidation of all the stylistic elements Soft Riot has pursued in the past; there’s the manic propulsive energy of “Waiting For Something Terrible To Happen”, the infectious, off-kilter dynamics of opener “The Eyes On The Walls” and the pulsing, elegiac synth washes of “The Saddest Music In The World”. Throughout the whole album Soft Riot fuses his maximalist sonic palette; a unique and playful fusion of new wave and early synth-pop with subtle flourishes of italo-synth, dissonance and other unexpected avant garde touches. Comparisons to musical kindred spirits like John Foxx, DAF, Fad Gadget and Virgin-era Cabaret Voltaire would be analogous, but JJD is defiantly ploughing his own distinctive furrow within the modern age.

The music on “The Outsider…” is evocative of an almost nostalgic futurism, but with an engaging mix of sweeping synthetic drama and understated humour, both in the music and JJD’s lyrical wordplay.

This is the first Soft Riot album is released on Possession Records; a new creative endeavour and label project that JJD himself is involved in with friends and fellow established Glasgow musicians Claudia Nova (Hausfrau) and Andy Brown (Ubre Blanca). Their aim is to bring together their pool of musical talents and provide a more permanent home for their future creative endeavours, whether it be music, video or otherwise and to experiment with what it is to be a “label” in the ever evolving 21st century. Future projects and releases will see them getting a select group of their peers and friends involved in Possession’s focused vision, locally or from further afield.

Special guests include UBRE BLANCA (Glasgow) + MEDDICINE (Brighton)