The best electronic music set in Leeds this year: Caribou + Ela Minus dazzle at Leeds O2 Academy

Francesca Lynes on 15 March 2025

It’s a Sunday night in February and I walk down, alone, to Leeds O2 Academy. Content in my headphones, I am reminded of the last time I queued outside this venue. It was freshers week, only a few months ago, though it feels like a year. It was the first Indie Thursday of the term; I remember the half-excited, entirely-awkward crowd of newbie students. As I look at those around me now to see who has replaced the noise, sweat and slightly manic excitement of freshers, I spot a 6ft+ man in a leather trench, leather cap and steel-toed cowboy boots queued next to two women in Princess Polly attire. Parents with younger kids wait alongside couples, students, and individuals like me – the broad appeal of Caribou’s uplifting electronic sound evident from beyond the vacant stage. This is my first time going to a gig by myself and I feel a certain nostalgia for my first days living in Leeds, the Caribou classic ‘Home’ playing from my phone, now a poignant soundtrack to this milestone of my newfound independence. 

As I wait by the barriers, cold starts to work its way through my Leeds layers, trepidation simultaneously building at the prospect of entering the cramped setting of Projekt. I begin to wonder what I should expect – a loud gig with one man on stage pressing some buttons on concealed DJ decks, with all the charisma of London posers mixing in Hyde Park? As if to dispel my doubts, an apparition appears. It is Dan Snaith picking up his Deliveroo dinner from beside the back door to the venue. An ordinary man, inconspicuous in a t-shirt and plain trousers, understandably goes unnoticed by those around me, though as he disappeared back into the venue, I felt a buzz at the thought of his imminent transformation. Like Clark Kent into Superman, I was now eagerly anticipating leaving the familiarity of the puddled Leeds streets to be taken into Caribou’s world of light, colour and bass-driven good times. I was not to be disappointed. 

Support act: Ela Minus 

Ela Minus is a Colombian multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer taking the techno world into her own hands. With a Björk-like air and the confidence of a musician settled into their artistry, this exciting performer positions herself in front of the DJ controller and promptly takes ownership of the stage. Buttons and dials are in full view of the audience; Minus herself is facing away. What follows is a masterclass in natural performance. At one point, I become convinced that Minus has forgotten about the crowd whilst she skip-dances across stage, sings with ease, keeps the pace and excitement with the electronic elements whilst making everyone feel included. A real show, yes, but one that encouraged attention as well as participation. The audience moved to every beat; there was a sense of a falling in love: for her music, her dance but also EDM as a whole. Minus’ presence and intense use of bass turns a Caribou crowd into eager, raving Minus fans. Her track ‘Broken’ from new album DÍA (2025), has been described by Pitchfork as “a cry for help that swells into a soul-purifying baptism-by-rave”. When the track rang out, the hair-vibrating levels of bass surpassed any previous gig volumes in my experience, pulling us into the intensity of healing by dance. It felt like an invitation to something special and, whether we purified our souls or not, we accepted it readily.

Caribou 

Building on the energy that Ela Minus had created, Caribou transfixes the audience. The levels of light, colour and volume start lower and gradually build up, creating an all-consuming set that uplifts and surprises. 

In the opening segment of the gig, Caribou keeps the stage in black and white as the band plays a few tracks from the lesser-known depths of his discography until a final crescendo and drop into the crowd-pleasing ‘Odessa’ when the venue was plunged into red lights and geometric patterns were projected behind the band. A striking start encourages consistent dancing from those around me, and I genuinely feel myself smiling at the stage as I eagerly await what’s to come. Caribou’s live performance consists of Snaith and his bandmates, Ryan Smith (guitar, keyboards), John Schmersal (bass, keyboards) and Brad Weber (drums). For some tracks, Dan and Brad face each other, both playing drumkits with a musicality that brings an electrifying definition to the drum solo. The energy of the three of them on stage takes over: everyone around me, including those I see when I crane my head to check out the balcony above, are on their feet dancing. At one point the sounds produce the sensation of being inside a siren (in an exciting, sonic-absorption kind of way); at most other points, the music simply encourages uninhibited dance. Caribou were smiling throughout, Snaith using the few breaks between pieces of the free-flowing setlist to look out at the crowd, expressing a gratitude that felt genuine. The pace is kept up for the whole evening, more intense EDM shifting seamlessly into classics such as ‘Sun’ and ‘Never Come Back’. It was fun and loud, at times soulful and always, consistently, joyous. The noise, bass, and dazzling beams made me consider at one point that I may leave O2 that night with reduced vision and hearing, a price that, in the infectious fun of Caribou’s set, seemed a reasonable one to pay. The musical highlight, however, has to be the 2,300 people (plus the 3 band members) singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the drummer, Brad. Electronic and dance music contributed an estimated £2.4 billion to the UK economy last year. Nevertheless, it is a genre, scene and entire community that is constantly being neglected – take the closure of Leeds’ very own Old Red Bus Station as a microcosm for this wider issue. My ticket for Caribou had a face value of £49.50 so it is understandable why there was a lack of students in the crowd. However, there are ways to support the local garage and electronic scene here in Leeds. Get yourself to Caribou or Ela Minus’ tour if you can, look out for smaller-cost clubnights such as Cosmic Slop (which Caribou has DJ’d at for free), or events at smaller venues. As Caribou has said about his own work, EDM “makes people happy”. Indeed, when I later listened to his 2025 album Honey back at my flat, I found myself dancing on my own in the shared kitchen, inevitably being caught twirling around while eating buttered toast. My recommendation for 2025? Go to the loudest gig of an artist you love, but go alone.

Written by Francesca Lynes

Kaeto’s INTRO to alt-pop stardom is just the beginning

Eszter Vida on 14 October 2024

Eszter Vida interviews London-based artist Kaeto on her debut mixtape ‘INTRO’ as she navigates us through her songwriting process, working on its visuals collaboratively and infusing different genres, as well as touring the UK with The Last Dinner Party.

O2 Academy Leeds, early autumn. The eclipsed sun sets over the tranquil sky. The air begins to bite you, turning colder by the second. The wind pulses intrusively in your hair, and the streetlights prematurely beam into the colours of a certain je ne sais quoi, only comparable to a scene from Blade Runner. Wearing my heavy blue headphones, Bob Dylan-style leather jacket with hands mimicking his Freewheelin’ album cover, I am shuffling down the hill from Hyde Park towards the city centre, until a little old me finds herself in the dressing room of O2 Academy. It was one crazy alternative way of pre-ing for the recently Mercury-nominated The Last Dinner Party’s headline tour, sharing an ephemerally short quarter of an hour with the opening act, Kaeto.

As Brat Summer fades into a distant dream, your playlists may be looking for something slightly more ambient, something more sombre, as we approach the colder months. Enter ‘Sad Girl Autumn’, a phenomenon brought to life by our generation’s self-indulgent collaging of itself through Pinterest boards and Instagram posts, but mostly for the obsessive purpose of repurposing and recycling the cultures of the past. There’s a heavy sense of this feeling attached to Kaeto’s debut mixtape INTRO, an all-embracing example of collaging and feeling through music.

The rising London-based artist recollects her memories of her school years and growing up in Leeds, using the internet as an outlet to share her passion for music before moving down to the big city, aged only 15. ‘I spent a lot of time singing in school productions and uploading videos of myself singing to YouTube’. The formative years of an artist, especially today, showcase the different experimentations of style and changes from childhood influences. ‘I did a Kelly Clarkson cover where I was moving my hands, and then everyone at school found it’. A generation defined by social media, what feels like the apocalyptic death to identity as a teenager expressing herself so early on, has since built the foundations of Kaeto’s genre-fluid style combined with elusive performance art at her live shows.

Creativity and freedom of expression becomes the core of her musical ventures, one that is aided in connecting with your surroundings. ‘We would write a lot on the rooftop amongst all these sunsets and colours in the sky.’ She says this, as she shows me souvenir snapshots of Sevillian lilac skies that acted as a studio space during her mixtape recording process earlier this year. The geographical landscape and music swiftly blend to form her aesthetic, illuminating the euphoric imagery of joy and self-reflective memory. Thanks to the intricate layers of soaring synths and low droning, there’s an element of cinema attached to the reeling quality of her songs, echoing the personal moment of an introspective train ride. ‘There’s a thing that happens to your brain when you look closely at something and disengage on a creative loop. We came away from that trip with so many more ideas than we would really, because you write in a studio.’

Both the music and visuals feel inherently interconnected, and Kaeto cites her collaborative partners who help capture her visual ideas. ‘I’ve ended up with a lot of friends who are talented cinematographers.’ This is just another layer to the importance of being part of a particular supportive hub of musicians, as she recounts the opportunity of being able to make endlessly content, amalgamating into a sort of musical treasure chest because of this networking. She speaks less about the opportunity to tour with The Last Dinner Party and more on the gratitude and excitement of forming friendship with lead singer, Abigail Morris, through the sheer coincidence of rehearsing at the same establishment. ‘First time we met we were both rehearsing in Premises, and we knew we were both going on tour together, so we sent each other messages like ‘Yay, you at Premises today?’ and we grabbed lunch together.’

Image Credit: Chuff Media

Quintessential is this theme of the personal and emotion, both conveyed in her new release INTRO; a raw, expressive take on trip-hop, electronic and dance music that was born from the idea of solely making music, without thinking about making an album. Albums and the releasing of music has changed, and the music of our generation has held this collaging status, specifically as her take on genre aligns with the idea that ‘the way we consume music is no longer genre bound.’ It’s almost as if her music’s intention is achieving this boundaryless feeling, not by design. She quotes the greats like Caroline Polachek and David Byrne (Talking Heads) on how album artwork used to signal genre and how music develops in the space it is played for. So where and how exactly would you listen to Kaeto’s music if we were to apply her personal philosophy?

‘Music is a communication of emotion, and so it’s by virtue that’s what music is to me, it’s how I feel.’ The opening track ‘U R Mine’ felt very Fiona Apple in a way, the bright reverberating pianos open with a dramatic, yearnful tone to her mixtape. A lover of unusual voices, if you tried fusing the of trip-hop and shoegaze you would only be cracking the surface of her sound. We discussed our love for the latter genre as she cited some of the artists, who we both gushed over. ‘Slowdive. Anything 90s shoegaze or like The Cranberries, The Sundays, that’s my shit.’ Her vocals always feel very soft, free and playful like they do in these genres, yet she doesn’t leave you with a predictable take, with the production style being also comparable to the likes of Portishead. The mixtape later flourishes into tracks like ‘KISS ME’ and ‘CARRY YOU’ that showcase more duality and flirtation, closing with the grandiosity of a dance track like ‘YOMM’. There is a lot of heart and heavy inward introspection, but also with the desire to party and enjoy youth. She comments on this duality and the purpose of making music; ‘It’s how I enjoy myself, it’s how I indulge in my morbid sadness, it’s definitely the lens through which I experience the world.’ Feeling through music becomes intangible. ‘Sometimes a song or a sound has encapsulated how you feel in a way that there are no words attached.’ There’s no overthinking when you are being authentically yourself, something we can marvel at with Kaeto’s ethereal stage presence and bold, individualist identity as an artist.

With the recent resurgence to dance music, Kaeto’s mixtape couldn’t arrive in a timelier fashion as an alterantive, adding to the wave by infusing electronica, bedroom-pop and eclectic lo-fi sounds that you couldn’t pin down to one lonely genre as the outcome of her writing process. ‘I would love to do more concept storytelling, but at the moment the way that I write doesn’t really call for that, because I very much write what comes from my subconscious.’ There’s clearly more to come. Afterall, an INTRO is foundational to the other parts to accompany an artist’s story beyond the ephemeral horizon she has begun to paint in hypnotic colours, reeling us into her world of nostalgia and writings of self-exploration.

Groove Armada: Dance music legends bring super style to their twilight voyage

Alex Gibbon on 8 April 2022

The babysitters have been booked, the Friday morning sick calls have been fully rehearsed, the hangover remedies have been pre-emptively laid out on kitchen islands. O2 Academy Leeds is packed with old-school ravers raring to go like it’s the last night of their lives. And why not? After all, this is likely the final chance they have to see Groove Armada perform a fully live show.

To celebrate a hugely successful 25 years since their debut, the dance legends are going out with a bang with a farewell tour. The duo, consisting of Tom Findlay and Andy Cato, defined the sound of the dancefloor for a generation alongside the likes of Basement Jaxx, Moloko and The Chemical Brothers. Throughout their genre-defying 8 album discography, they infuse floor fillers with flavours of trip-hop, funk and jungle to create music that is as at home in a sweaty house party basement as it is on a sun-soaked Ibiza beach. As sad it is to see them go, the crowd can’t wait to watch them leave.

As expected, the night’s setlist has its focus on the fan favourites rather than deeper cuts. With hits like ‘Look Me in the Eye Sister’, ‘My Friend’, and ‘Song 4 Mutya’ smartly starting proceedings, the room is invigorated from the offset.

M.A.D. and Groove Armada

Three singers share the responsibility of vocals, switching out individually for each song. Saint Saviour, complete with a tartan kilt and pigtails like a rave-ready Pippi Longstocking, covers the stomping house tracks while throwing her body into theatrically poised shapes. Veba punches iron-lunged power into the duo’s soulful electronica. M.A.D. acts as the hypeman, MCing over breakbeats and bringing the vigorous energy of an after-hours party. Each vocalist excels in their own style and highlights the impressive breadth of Groove Armada’s sound. This variety is also what propels the show forward, sometimes in unexpected ways. M.A.D. filling the shoes of Gramma Funk on irresistible Big Beat anthem ‘I See You Baby’ was a particular delight.

After a night of bleeping synths and pumping four-to-the-floor beats, the call of a trombone signals the encore with the opening riffs of downtempo house anthem ‘At The River’. By the time the intro of show closer ‘Superstylin’ rolls around, the crowd are practically rabid.

This swansong may have been a no-frills affair but, by relying on the strength of their crowd-pleasing catalogue, Groove Armada were able to deliver a lively and consistent send-off. This armada may be on its twilight voyage, but this is how you dock for the last time in super style.