Artemas

Breakout pop superstar Artemas played his only UK date on a tour featuring over a dozen destinations in America at Camden’s Roundhouse off the back of his third mixtape LOVERCORE. This was my fifth time seeing the singer, and at his biggest headline show in the country to date no less. Having witnessed Artemas’s come-up from playing festival stages to crowds of fifty to selling out his own shows with thousands in attendance, I can confidently say he puts great effort into his craft in order to provide his fans with the best possible recorded material and live performances.

Previous supports have included Willow Kayne and Nikhal, and this time Panicbaby took to Artemas’s biggest stage yet to open the show. Her hat with rabbit ears and a ridiculous tutu were probably the most interesting things about her. Lifeless and tuneless, Panicbaby completely ruined the instrumentals (that had some potential) with tone deaf vocals that left the audience unsure whether to grimace or laugh. She did not interact with the crowd even once, and her performance fell completely flat on weary ears. Ending with a song she’d already played earlier on (clearly, she didn’t have enough material to last a mere half-hour set), Panicbaby was an incredibly boring and uninspired opener.

Before Artemas walked onstage his name was illuminated on a large sheet that hung behind the entire length of the stage. Opening with an epic intro and flashing lights, the word on the backdrop changed to “LOVERCORE”. The set began with synthy ‘superstar’ as a lively crowd screamed and cheered. They were fanatical, singing every song word-for-word, and were completely infatuated for the duration of the performance. The singer himself was filled with energy as he performed stunning vocals as well as some keyboard parts himself. Having played guitar live before on previous tours, it was great to see Artemas playing instruments onstage as well as singing. Guitar parts were performed by Peter Wilson and live drums came courtesy of Andrei Martynchyk, who has played with Artemas for a number of years. These musicians really fleshed out the performance, with guitar solos on songs like ‘how could u love somebody like me?’ sonically completing each track.

Constantly darting across the stage and singing right into the audience in front of him, Artemas certainly knows how to please a crowd. He has a great vocal range and performed perfectly in tune - the complete antithesis of his opening act. His lyrical content is dark and hedonistic, filled to the brim with sexual references and flirty quips. This sybaritic character he plays in his lyricism works perfectly with his visual aesthetic, which has been developed over the three mixtapes released in the last couple of years. Around half of the set consisted of material from LOVERCORE, but tracks from last year’s Yustyna and pretty amassed the greatest crowd reaction. Before the final song of the set ‘as i wave goodbye’, Artemas of course had to play his biggest song to date ‘i like the way you kiss me’. A more intense, dark and bassy version of the track that has accrued around 1.5 billion streams on Spotify rounded out the performance nicely, and the singer’s vocals were good enough to distract from the sea of thousands of phones in the air recording.

Artemas remains a great performer, as he has been over the past few years. Having recently exploded onto the international scene, he’s done incredibly well to cement himself as a staple within his subgenre of alternative pop music. His sold-out show at Roundhouse was testament to both his skill as a singer and the strength of his fanbase. Artemas continues the LOVERCORE tour this month across the States.