Liverpool Music Week has a history of great DIY/LMW line-ups, with last year’s inaugural including some names that have gone to bigger things. This year, instantly one name popped out to everyone, the twin-like duo of Let’s Eat Grandma. 

Tonight opposite a packed headliner show, the wonderfully odd duo Lets Eat Grandma brought a calm spectacle to the Arts Club Loft. 

Just moments after I rushed into the Arts Club, greeted by only ten or twenty people talking among themselves, the dreampop lone singer-songwriter Mary Miller stepped onto the stage, greeted by the audience after a brief pause. 

She seemed nervous, equipped with her guitar and laptop/sampler set-up, moments after beginning it was hard to see why she seemed nervous, bringing a charm to the stage. She was unique, her presence was different than most, dressed in her Stop Making Sense-esque pants and standing alone. Her set was done well, especially those after the brilliant “Conditioning” hit well, my only complaint is that Mary would work so much better with backing band, the samples and backing tracks were offputting with her vocals, badly mixed at the start of the set. 

The upcoming vocalist has only a handful of demos online, but we’re dreaming of a world where Mary Miller pops up almost everywhere and telling by the look of Mary here, our dreams may just come true. She’s already set to play the Fat Sister show on November 11th at the Buyers Club, and knowing the sound technician there, this will be set to go without issues. 

Another set to play on November 11th, LUNA takes stage dressed to kill with set up on the keyboards. A hotly tipped artist in the current scene, however we left unimpressed by her at tonight’s gig. Her voice is unlike any other, striking notes with ease, her voice is truly remarkable however the unimpressive portion would be the unoriginality of her sound, ending with her latest single (out now) “Free Falling”, she simply didn’t light a spark under our fire. 

Before that, LUNA led us into a medley cover of TLC‘s “No Scurbs” and WSTRN‘s “IN2”, a slight showing of skill in crafting the two perfectly, the highlight of her set, but overall sadly nothing magical or even great. LUNA is a talented vocalist, but a tried-and-tested sound leaves us without a strong impression. 

HAARM took the stage next, the brand new four-piece simply astonish in their live debut. Opening with their single “Into The Wild”, the new band brought a bang to the room, taking everyone into their big stage sound and for the first time tonight, we felt totally live. The band showcased a short set of their tracks, with all of them sounding brilliant live. “Foxglove”, their debut out on streaming services now, impressed the room ending with a long-standing reaction. 

The 17 year-old pair of oddities Let’s Eat Grandma took to the stage next, with an array of instruments backing their experimental set, the two certainly left us and everyone around us speechless. 

There’d a childlike magic to their stage performance, with the hopscotch usage and their antics on stage, however their music is crafted so elegantly, so mature for two talented younglins. 

Words by Jack Cinnamond, photography by Phil Johnson.