Live Review + Gallery | SON Estrella Galicia's Soundhood Hackney

Amor Líquido | MORN | Courting | Gurriers

27th September 2025

Photography by Zosia Kibalo

Ioan Hazell

Journalist, musician, and poet with a passion for storytelling in all its myriad forms.

Interested in the stories, people, and art at the fringes. If it’s weird, count me in.

SON Estrella Galicia’s Soundhood Hackney returns to London in 2025 with its most ambitious line-up yet, featuring Courting, Gurriers and more

Taking over the East London music scene for one night only, SON Estrella Galicia’s Soundhood Hackney — a multi-venue micro-festival with programming spread between Paper Dress Vintage, Oslo Hackney, and The Sebright Arms — promised an unprecedentedly packed line-up for 2025. Featuring artists from the UK, Ireland, and Spain, the night seemed set to be an international showcase of the hottest acts on the grassroots scene.

Devising a game-plan was never going to be easy. With the likes of Gurriers, Folly Group, and Courting on the line-up (not to mention a host of phenomenal support acts), there wasn’t a set at any of the venues that I felt prepared to miss. However, I am but one man, and a somewhat organisationally impaired one at that, so as I approached Hackney on the overground with the sun casting a sentimental rust across the city, I began to accept my fate.

A last-minute invitation to Estrella’s Beer & Beats Experience decided my first stop. Arriving at Paper Dress Vintage, I was welcomed with a bottle of their wonderful lager and seated in the smoking area. What ensued was a faintly baffling game of musical bingo, alongside some impassioned talks from the organisers, during which a multitude of comparisons were drawn between lager and music.

If a little transparent in their sales intentions, I found the talks amusing. There was something markedly eccentric about the whole thing. In other words, it was a good lead in, and by the time I went inside to watch some music, the atmosphere seemed palpably warmer. Though perhaps the beer had something to do with that.

Kicking things off at Paper Dress, Amor Líquido delivered a roaring 30-minute set that forced the crowd abruptly into gear. Often described as art-punks, the Spanish four-piece were a refreshing change from the bookish sternness of their British counterparts. Wild and unapologetically influenced by sugary indie-rock, they put on a frenetic, upbeat show; if the audience’s reaction was anything to go by, it seems likely the group will be gracing London’s venues again soon.

Following Amor Líquido were Courting, headliners of the Paper Dress stage. Hailing from Liverpool, Courting have seen considerable growth following the release of their third album ‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to Tell the Story’. I was intrigued to see whether Courting could live up to the hype they have garnered.

Beginning with a sampled violin reminiscent of the final section of The Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’, the band launched into a set filled with retrospective but nonetheless powerful rock songs. Somewhat unusually, most of the sonic comparisons that came to mind whilst watching Courting were of a similar era — The Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols, The Undertones — but even so, at no point did the group drown in the pool of their influences. There is a sort of viciousness to Courting, a contemporary angst that keeps them afloat.

Before their set finished, I dashed over to Oslo to catch MORN. Having recently released their debut single ‘Modern Man’ with Speedy Wunderground, MORN are fast on the rise. Having listened to ‘Modern Man’ and been in equal parts intrigued and troubled by its bi-polar moods, I was interested to see whether a live performance would contextualise the band’s compositional ambition. That, it certainly did.

For a relatively young group, MORN’s songs are strikingly nuanced. Oscillating between stirring group harmonies and tranquilized monologues, they occupy broad territory. Although clearly more comfortable in some areas than others, I was impressed in the main by the band’s dauntless song writing. To be reminded during a single song of both New York Dolls and Slint is no mean feat, and it made immediate sense that MORN might be hard to capture in a studio setting. My advice to readers: Go and see them live, you’ll get it.

Closing the night at Oslo were Gurriers. Formed pre-pandemic in Dublin, Gurriers released their debut album ‘Come and See’ in September 2024. A soaring collection of noise infused post-punk, it is an album laced with the influence of their Irish contemporaries — think Gilla Band, Fontaines DC, The Murder Capital.

During the break between acts, Oslo filled to near capacity and there was a palpable buzz in the room, a readiness among the audience for what was about to happen. What I suspect nobody in the room anticipated was that when Gurriers did eventually take the stage, they did so to the accompaniment of Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.

A brief singalong ensued, after which Gurriers tore the jubilant vibe apart with what was indisputably the evening’s fiercest performance. Deafening digital distortion tore wasp-like through the room, walls of death assembled and collided. At one point, all but two of the five piece’s members were among the crowd.

Gurriers proved themselves to be many things at Oslo: vocal supporters of a free Palestine, resistors to the trend of Irish bands moving to London (see the lyrics to their 2024 single ‘Dipping Out’), and protégés of some surprisingly conventional rock bands; at least I thought I picked up on AC/DC’s influence in there. But in all that they did, Gurriers were elevated and emboldened by a total commitment to performance that set them firmly in a league of their own.

I came away from Soundhood Hackney knackered, amazed, and somewhere more distantly, impressed that the alcohol industry — about which my dubiousness remains largely intact, but perhaps softened — had proven its ability to bring together a diverse and thriving community in genuine celebration of art and the people making it.