The Manchester based electronic-dance band have pulled me out of this semi-bright British day (a taste of summer in this bleak winter) into a sense of loss. Usually I avoid this feeling, sadness. I don’t try to look back at past failings or feel their weight. And you know what? I feel good – I feel…released.

The band’s latest song, Contact Lens, released on the 24th of November and weaves it way between joy and sadness – going from ‘holding hands’ and romantic notions to falling into ‘a cloud in such bad weather’. There’s a great sense of loss in these lyrics.

The band lead singer and vocalist, Kiera Court, has a wispy sort of voice that carries the playful notes she produces and layers the undertones of someone with a heavy heart and a sense of loss. It’s a voice that you’d find instantly recognisable. If you put Head Ballet on a speaker in a room full of a thousand chatty people, those who fans would instantly feel their ears prickling up.

Loss in for Head Ballet isn’t a losing someone, it’s losing the ability to see clearly – that what they’ve lost provided them with so much clarity that without it they feel almost blinded. The idea of losing innocence isn’t something that’s lost on this generation, and for a band that takes inspiration from its experiences – that formed during the height of lockdown – loss of clarity and feeling blind and confused is something that many of this Covid-kept generation can relate to.

Contact Lens is a song that seeps pain like a dull ache, one that makes you want to cry – and that’s a compliment! Songs should feel emotionally evocative, not just passive tunes that you listen to while you’re on the bus or going for a run or leaving work. Sometimes you need to let your hair down, get out the Ben & Jerry’s, lie on your bed and listening to a sad song and let all that built up pressure free – utterly lose it, just ‘like a contact lens’.

If you’re looking to see this band live and live within or can travel to London in January, then you are in luck! The band will be playing live in The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington. Tickets are available and can be found through the link in the bands Instagram bio. For those able to attend the show at 7pm on Wednesday 31st of January will be in for a treat!