Every year, the London edition of Pitchfork Music Festival promises to deliver carefully selected line-ups of interesting musicians performing in some of the Capital’s beloved and established music venues. On 9th November, they gave over the curation to Troxy’s headline act, CASISDEAD. I was excited - I’ve been a fan since hearing the Commercial 2 mixtape (only available via cassette or YouTube rip), and was curious to see his headline show - after a highly successful year following the release of his debut album, Famous Last Words.
I was unable to make it for the first act, but arrived with plenty of time to settle into Florence Sinclair. The mysterious rapper and musician entered the stage dressed in wispy white fabric, their ghost-like attire perfectly reflecting the Dean-Blunt-esque songs that the avant-garde performer rattled through in their short but punchy set. With a hood, mask and strobe lighting obscuring their face, it was hard not to feel lost in the performance at times. Although personal highlights gold bottles and skins sounded great, it sometimes felt as though their voice was fighting against the booming bass, and some more clarity in the lyrics could’ve gone a long way in improving the set.
Following this was a DJ set from Qendresa, someone who I was not familiar with before this event. I thought she was great, sonically matching the throwback sound that CASISDEAD often refers to in his music, and a lot of the crowd felt the same way too - I caught quite a few people bopping along to the slow jams and rare disco tunes on offer. With the crowd filling nicely, the stage cleared for some odd props while we waited for the headline act.
It’s hard to pinpoint where to place CASISDEAD on the wider musical landscape. His shock win (and even the fact he was nominated) at the BRITS this year, beating the likes of Dave and Little Simz, suggests a much more mainstream following and sound than the Troxy headline show at Pitchfork Fest. However the mask, the lack of interviews and high concept music (Famous Last Words is set in a dystopian future, where the fictional hyper-capitalist conglomerate “DeadCorp” rules) suggest a much more underground following than the crowd that was with me in Troxy.
Before he began, a tall, pretty woman slowly entered the frame and got inside one of the props on stage - a futuristic box labelled “PLEASURE BOT 2.0.” We were now no longer in 2024. With this black mirror inspired staging complete, CAS entered the stage to a crowd frenzy, wasting no time in rattling off hits from Famous Last Words. Painting pictures of drug fuelled nights, seedy characters and a lot of regret, the rapper performed a hard hitting set that really got the crowd going. However, by the middle of the set, it sometimes felt as though CAS was just walking around the stage, letting his hype man take the bulk of the rapping duties, their roles reversed.
In spite of this, the highlight of the whole day came in the tail end of the set, when it looked like energies might be dwindling. UK rap legend Giggs burst onto stage to perform fan-favourite What’s my name?, igniting the crowd and getting the only wheel-up of the night. With the up-and-down performance coming to a close, CASISDEAD showed why his placement in the rap world has so many question marks - there is undeniable quality and an artistic vision, but it feels just a bit too unpolished to label him a great.
