Brooklyn’s Say She She are a vocal power trio, comprising Londoner Piya Malik and Americans Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown. They wield that power seductively with their signature intoxicating and exotic high harmonies backed by a superb soul funk band who demonstrated on this outing that it was possible to exude laidback vitality.
Named in honour of fellow New York trailblazers Chic, they are a suitably classy, choreographed outfit but there was no doubt as they immersed themselves in the sensual siren vibes of opening number Reeling that these woman were feeling it. The Chic influence was only enhanced by the psych jazz feel of C’est Si Bon, spiced with a hint of Afrobeat guitar, while the lean funk of two more NYC icons, Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, also infused the music, so it was no surprise when they aced a cover of Slippery People.
Though much of the set came from current album Silver, they impressed with earlier material, including the sumptuous slow jam of Fortune Teller, soaring catharsis of Trouble (with dance routine) and the rapturous soprano harmonies Blow My Mind. For all their floaty vocal interplay, they also injected some lyrical edge with the 70s-style conscious soul of Echo In the Chamber, agitating for gun control, before funk rocking a woman’s right to choose on NORMA.
The costumes then changed from black leather to gold shimmer for the home straight – an ecstatic Astral Plane, electro funk Questions, the sublime Forget Me Not and the hymnal harmonies of Bleeding Heart giving way to a perky 80s rock number before climaxing with an utterly joyous cover of the Jackson Sisters’ soul disco classic I Believe In Miracles.
