Cacophony – Paris Paloma Casts a Spell on Brudenell

Aeryn Pettifor on 11 December 2024

On the 28th of November, Paris Paloma graced Leeds as the ninth and final stop on her UK tour after the release of her new album Cacophony. The album has amassed over 240 million streams on Spotify since its release in late August, with hits including ‘Labour’ and ‘Drywall’as fan favourites. Originally from the Midlands, Paris has gained acclaim for her music since 2020 and now has an impressive 6.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The strong themes of sisterhood and feminine rage against a consistently misogynistic society that feature in her songs, have struck a chord with many women across the world.

But onto the show! Newcomer Nadia Kadek stepped in to open the last three shows in place of Luvcat and delivered a mesmerising performance. Gentle and compelling, Nadia took us on a journey of yearning and forgiveness and held the audience in a trance. Although Nadia hasn’t officially released any music yet, make sure to check out her Instagram: @nadia.kadek for performances and demos. And, if you send her a dm, she’ll send you a secret song! My personal favourite song she performed was Green Car – check it out!

Paris kicked off the show with the first song on Cacophony: ‘My Mind(now)’, with the audience smoothly chanting along. Accompanied by George and Jim, on bass guitar, and drums and keys respectively, Paris began casting her spell on the audience. Notable standouts for me were ‘Knitting Song’, ‘Last Woman on Earth’, ‘The Warmth’ and ‘Escape Pod’ (from the perspective of Laika, the first dog sent to space ☹) although the whole album is a joy to listen to.

During a break for her band, Paris sat down with us to play ‘Triassic Love Song’on her acoustic guitar,a song about the famous ‘Triassic Cuddle’, (look it up!) just one of her many songs from clever perspectives. This song also included a ‘call and response’ section, which scratched an itch in my brain perfectly. Furthermore, Paris fits perfectly into the ‘Ancient Gods duo’ of Hozier and Florence + The Machine, so if you’re looking for new music following similar themes exploring divinity and mythology, then I urge you to take a deep dive into Paris’ discography.  

Moving on, Paris’ most popular song ‘Labour’ was played as the encore, and every single person in the room knew the words. It gave me goosebumps. ‘Labour’ discusses the invisible emotional, physical and sexual labour that is forced upon women, especially in relationships and how exhausting it is to carry. Resonating with women all around the world for its calling out of weaponised male incompetence and unfair expectations of women, ‘Labour’ has catapulted Paris into the spotlight, and for good reason.

If we had a daughter,
I’d watch and could not save her

                              —-

It’s not an act of love if you make her
You make me do too much labour

In a similar vein is ‘Last Woman on Earth’, which discusses the important issue of bodily autonomy, focusing especially on how the female body can be mistreated after death at the hands of men. Paris explores choosing ‘the flame over desecration’, and ‘leave me to the beasts and bears, I’d rather that the feast was theirs’, and pleads with us, the listeners, to respect her wishes. It’s an uncomfortable song, but unfortunately a necessary one to tell, especially in our society’s increasingly unstable political climate. But I digress.

The background set was beautifully hand-painted, featuring wolves, bears and forests, and added to the captivating atmosphere of the gig. There was even an exchange box at the merch stand, where audience members could pick up old books and leave little notes and friendship bracelets to swap with other people. The vibes were so welcoming and safe, which unfortunately, can be rare at some gigs – there was even a dancing circle after the set was finished!

So, to round off, I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of the captivating performance of such a wonderful breakthrough artist, and I thoroughly recommend you see Paris on her next tour! Unfortunately, Leeds was the last stop on the UK stretch of Cacophony, and up next for her is North America in March 2025. But I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Check out Paris’ latest release: ‘The Rider’, written for the new Lord of the Rings animated film: The War of the Rohirrim, which is out in cinemas! And make sure to stream her album Cacophony on Spotify now – happy listening! x

Words by Aeryn Pettifor

Carbon capture: an answer to net zero pledges or continued fossil fuel usage?

Katy Whelan on 18 October 2024

On the 4th of October, Prime Minister Kier Sarmer announced that £22bn was going towards climate funding, specifically into carbon capture and storage. With the UK closing its last coal power station, making it the first G7 nation to phase out coal completely, the UK is looking to win another race on the energy front. But what is carbon capture? Is it the golden opportunity Kier Starmers Labour Party is making it out to be, or is it simply a scapegoat for oil and gas companies?

In its simplest form, carbon capture and storage is when you take the CO2 emissions directly from a power station or factory and transport them to a unit via pipes or ships to a location where they are typically stored by being injected into porous rocks deep underground. 

The UK government has cited that carbon capture is necessary for Britain to reach its climate targets set by the secretary of state, Ed Milliband. This is because carbon capture will greatly help reduce the CO2 emissions escaping into the atmosphere in heavy industrial operations like cement and glass making. This isn’t even to mention the 2,000 skilled jobs it would create and the foreseeable private investments spoken about by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. In addition, Starmer mentioned that on a large scale, it could create 50,000 jobs in the future.

So, in the government’s eyes, carbon capture is ideal for the UK as it provides more skill-based jobs while helping reach its COP pledges. Furthermore, the UK is at a prime spot geologically to provide storage for carbon as the UK’s continental shelf holds ⅓ of all the exploitable carbon storage space in Europe. Including access to the North, North Atlantic and Irish seas, as well as the English Channel. Insinuating that the UK’s economy could thrive if carbon capture and storage is introduced not just in the UK but globally, as it could become a hub for storage. 

While this sounds promising, there are some large concerns over using carbon capture and storage on a large scale. The general public and climate scientists worry that oil and gas companies recently urged governments to introduce carbon capture. It’s believed that carbon capture will still allow companies to keep using fossil fuels as it doesn’t equate to green or renewable energies. This implies that these large corporations can continue to exploit fossil fuels, depleting the already finite resources and further damaging the planet. Therefore making it harder to reach our net-zero targets. 

Studies into carbon capture have shown that it is not 100% effective at removing all the carbon. While the technology boasts the claim to remove 90% or more, scientists have found that it only removes around 70%. Moreover, climate scientists instead believe that the UK should be introducing cleaner, green, renewable energy sources like solar and wind instead of allowing the continued use of carbon via the vastly more expensive practice of carbon capture.

Overall, carbon capture and storage seems like a good idea on the surface for British people as it will advance the economy, create new jobs and seemingly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Simply looking deeper into the technology shows us that it won’t help the future of our planet, allowing elevated fossil fuel exploitation. Therefore, contributing to our rising sea levels and global temperature by allowing big companies to offset their carbon production without any real sustainable practice taking place.         

Are Keir Starmer’s Plans For Radical Constitutional Reforms Too Ambitious?

Oliver Bhutiani on 9 December 2022

On Monday 5th December, Labour announced a 40-point plan on overhauling the British Constitution, one that promised to sweep away outdated and outgrown structures such as the House of Lords – to be replaced with modern alternatives. It promised to reunite UK Politics around improved structures – furthering devolution to national and local government, which hopes to rebalance power closer to people; enshrining rights, such as right to healthcare; commitments to clean up corruption in Westminster by banning second jobs and foreign money; and finally introducing a replacement for the House of Lords, representing nations and regions at the centre, and granting power to this assembly to protect constitutional rights. However, like the constitutional reforms made by Tony Blair , these risk not going far enough to repair the foundations of our democracy, and one area remains completely unaddressed: the broken electoral system in place for general elections.

The current electoral model is not fit for the modern age – its greatest weakness being wasted votes, where any vote casted for a candidate other than the preferred of the two most popular candidates running will count for nothing, and possibly even prevent a preferred candidate from winning. This has unevenly punished progressives due to there being a wider variety of parties – a Liberal Democrat who would prefer a Labour candidate to a Conservative is given no chance to indicate preference, and their vote could help decide more fairly the most popular choice in the area.

The absence of electoral reform from Labour’s plans, especially when Keir Starmer has been quoted as saying “on electoral reform, we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count,” makes this especially disappointing. With a chance to improve democracy for all voters, Labour should seize the opportunity to rebalance voting power in favour of voters.

The plan for a new upper chamber (The Assembly of the Nations and Regions), promises to better represent the whole UK in Westminster: a change that will address the fundamental concerns behind independence movements and disillusionment with the system, and the promise to grant powers to protect Constitutional rights is a welcome one. However, it seems already that this chamber would struggle against the power of a majority government opposing the House, as the power of the Prime Minister to reverse or weaken these changes is not curtailed. To ensure that these improvements are both lasting and workable, Labour must commit to properly balancing power between branches of government, and work to restrict the damage that an overzealous Prime Minister may do to Human Rights, Equality and other fundamental legislation that impacts the most vulnerable in our society.

A welcome change is an updating of the standards that MPs are held to – banning second jobs and passing anti-corruption legislation certainly promises to hold politicians to a higher standard. However, while judgements will be made by independent bodies, decisions will ultimately still be taken by the Prime Minister, demonstrating that the PM’s role can still be abused to support members of government that fail to observe the rules and standards. Reforms to be made concerning standards, while certainly heading in the right direction, fall short of what the public deserves concerning the implementation of punishments against those accountable to us. To properly reform this area of government, Labour must commit to take power from the Prime Minister’s position and allow independent bodies to enforce the standards we deserve.

These reforms are certainly a step towards repairing the trust between people and politicians, seeking move power away from the centre, but they fall short primarily because it still relies on the “good chap” system – the government only being bound by respect for tradition and established institutions. As was seen with the Johnson administration however, this quickly comes apart once there aren’t “good chaps” in power. Labour’s plans for reform are a step in the right direction, but more must be done if we want to fully repair the trust between people and the political system.

Image Credit: Flickr