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VOGUES

Against a backdrop of ethereal, alt pop that blurs the analogue with the digital, East London based actor and musician Vogues uses the project as a space to explore their nonbinary identity.

 Based in London, Vogues crafts reflective, atmospheric soundscapes that evoke the tension between urban isolation and fleeting moments of intimacy. Their debut release on Nothing Fancy Records, the No Songbirds EP (April 2024), combines minimalist arrangements with raw, emotive storytelling. Drawing from the post-industrial landscapes of the city, Vogues captures a sonic world that feels both distant and deeply personal - a fitting addition to the Joy of Life roster.




TENDER MERCIES
28th November 2025


There’s a feeling, drifting through Tender Mercies, of looking back at a version of yourself with equal parts benevolence, curiosity, and amusement. The debut album from Vogues, built from songs written between 2018 and 2021, plays like a carefully sequenced mixtape. Tender Mercies is a rich, personal document that explores self-perception, gender and sexuality through shifting textures, emotional candour, and a camp, kitsch sense of play.

Written and recorded over several years in bedrooms, backseats, and borrowed studios between Cornwall, London, and France, Vogue’s current musical offerings come from a project stitched together from past selves, layered fidelities, and shifting perspectives that mirror the artist’s own experience of gender, grief, and creative transformation.

“These songs were written between 2018 and 2021,” they explain. “So they’re almost like postcards from different versions of myself pre-transition, pre-adulthood, pre-clarity. There’s a kind of patchwork identity running through it, both sonically and personally. Some of it’s quite tender, some of it’s totally unhinged. That feels honest to me.”

Inspired by artists like Arthur Russell, Anohni, The Blue Nile, and Solange, Tender Mercies is a record that thrives in contrast. Side A moves with a pulsing urgency – seeking change, escape, catharsis. Side B turns inward: sparer, stranger, and more content to live in the ambiguity. “There’s this moment of trying to push against something,” Vogues says, “and then later, it becomes about embracing the weirdness. Letting it lie.”

Much of the record concerns romantic turmoil, refracted through a shifting sense of identity and memory. It’s music shaped as much by past mistakes as it is by playful reinvention: trying to write a Weeknd-style anthem and ending up somewhere totally unexpected; chasing polish and winding up with something warped but more honest. Vogues calls these moments “tender mercies” — not soft or saccharine, but looking in the rearview mirror with generosity. A little bit of perspective. A chance to laugh at yourself.

The production holds that tension too: home-spun meets high-fidelity, lo-fi grooves layered with lush instrumentation and melodic ambition. There’s a quiet theatricality throughout — not showy, but stylised, refracted through queer sensibility, late-night energy, and a deliberate disregard for what’s tasteful. “It’s camp and kitsch,” Vogues offers. “Like a trinket shop in St. Ives. You want everything in there, but nothing actually works — unless it’s all together.”

Visuals accompanying the record echo this: homemade footage alongside cinematic moments, collaged with a sense of lightness and intuitive joy. The result is a body of work unafraid to exist in-between — genre, gender, fidelity, feeling. A non-binary record in more ways than one.



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