11 July 2021

Pencilled pop

The National Portrait Gallery has an array of musics including their Drawn In sessions where they provide easels and paper and pencils and visitors are invited to draw to the accompaniment of musicians.  Today's was with nonbinarycode.  They got me in mentioning that they'd grown up on grunge, punk and stadium rock.  Sounds cool and good fun.  I could expect some renowned anthems and searching lyrics.  nonbinarycode was a duo: Hardman and InkBits.  Well, I got their names chatting to them later and they were wonderfully welcoming and not at all hard or bitsy.  The sound was Maton acoustic guitar into a decent PA, vocals and occasional harmonies.  No auto-drums or the like, but nicely solid strummed rhythms and committed voice out front. Structurally simple but attractive and inviting with tunes like Scar/Missy Higgins, One/U2, Never tear us apart/INXS, Broken bells/Greta van Fleet.  Popular and satisfying and most intriguing hits.

nonbinarycode performed in the foyer at the National Portrait Gallery for a Drawn In session.  nbc are Jolene Mifsud (vocals) and Stephen Harden (guitar, harmony vocals).

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