Melancholic Pop To Upbeat Dance Music Highlight Mogli’s Seattle Vera Project Performance (SHOW REVIEW)

“She had such a kind smile, and her music is so good, that I didn’t want to go to sleep!”

So said the nine-year-old whose father would consent only to be her being listed as “W,” when asked what she thought of the May 21st all-ages show featuring German artist Mogli at Seattle’s Vera Project.

This may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but given that the show’s headliner began at 9pm, it was, in fact, a perfectly honest way to capture the show. Opener Josin used her melancholic, rhythmic set in a valiant if an unsuccessful effort of trying to get the seated audience moving. This made the reviewer wonder how Mogli would do at activating the crowd; however, my fears were for naught.

Now 25, Mogli has been performing since age 11, and it shows. From the beginning, her effervescent presence and gorgeous voice brought people in; she easily engaged the audience with her captivating music and the ready smile that danced across her mouth and radiated from her eyes throughout the show. The relatively small audience belied the quality of both the music and the show itself, as Mogli and her three fellow band mates played through 15 beautiful songs. Her catalog ranges through melancholic pop to upbeat dance works, with odd bits of funk and disco appearing and then disappearing again without warning. Highlights of the show included the haunting “Strobe Lights” – played, appropriately, with flashing white lights; “Alaska” – its beauty unfolding as the second song of the evening; “Aftermath” – a song not-yet-finished but, as she said, currently very meaningful to her such that “she wanted to share it with us;” and “Patience” – written to remind her to “give herself slack.”

Mogli is a newcomer to North America as a musician, though she previously toured the United States living in a school-bus-cum-tiny-house, about which a film was made – the 2017 Netflix movie “Expedition Happiness,” for which she wrote the soundtrack. Seemingly quite aware that she is an unknown quantity on this, her first musical tour of the US, she dutifully introduced every song. In many cases she further shared with the audience the meaning of the song or the place or state of mind in which she had written it, sharing her struggles with self-confidence, patience, and loss with a repeated rejoinder that “things will get better.”

Her efforts to engage the audience never waned, whether laughing and shrugging after one of her microphones lost its cord or, toward the end of the show, when she asked if anyone in the audience would want to help choose the next song. Noting that the band has been on the road since mid-March and was keen on mixing things up, she proffered a wool hat full of folded papers to the aforementioned 9-year-old, who selected “Earth.”

\Mogli feels like an artist – and a public person – who will be around a while. Her music is catchy, evocative, and memorable. Further, as if the above-mentioned film and music performance career weren’t enough, she also designs clothing. Catch her now, so you can say you knew her when…

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