If you don’t know Steff Mundi, she is a singer/songwriter, musician and producer based in the North East of England. Her creations draw inspiration from a mixture of genres including Folk, Jazz, Lofi Indie Pop, and IDM. If you’re a fan of Nick Hakim, late Radiohead, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lea Sen, then you’re going to be a fan of Steff. In 2023 she released ‘Clementine’, which later was hailed as June’s Demo of the Month by NARC Magazine. Fast forward to now, Steff has been working on new music which will be a hybrid of acoustic and electronic.

Before I start this review, I want to fully disclose that I’m a terrible friend. I’ve been pals with Steff for a few years now and not once have I been to any of her gigs (I’m sorry, Steff), but when she told me she was playing The Glasshouse (formerly The Sage. If you’ve ever been to Newcastle, it’s that big glass building on the other side of the River Tyne), I knew I had to go. With that said, this review is not going to be biased and is going to, as the kids say, spit hard facts. This gig was headlined by talented North East local, Jodie Nicholson, for the launch of her sophomore album Safe Hands. As well as Steff, Callum Pitt, yet another North East local, was the support. If you’re fans of either of those, I apologise but this isn’t about them, you should still check them out though.

Steff was the opener for this evening, and she started the night off with a short song that actually doesn’t have a name, however she sometimes calls it ‘Sun’, which was then followed by ‘Monochrome’, a (in Steff’s words here) diss track.

Next was a very meaningful song to Steff titled ‘Air We Breathe’ which is about the things in life that she wants. During the line “You put your records on, and I’ll have a sing”, Steff had a little smile and a head shake like the lyrics was playing a memory in her head. I may have shed a tear or two during this one. Moving on, we had ‘Patchouli’, a song about a past relationship. This one is personally my favourite due to the clever lyricism. “No, I don’t resemble a tall glass with a high alcohol content, but I sometimes wish I did”, and “Quitting out the long game, tall standing twin air sign, brown eyed mistake of mine”, the little subtle and poetic digs put a smirk on my face.

Following was ‘Gleaming’ a song about Steff’s late Mam which featured the lyrics, “You come, Gleaming, out the, Infirmary”, and “Brand new, used but in, priceless, good condition”. Second to last was ‘Clementine’ which has a guitar melody that feels like it’s just building and building. Steff’s set ended with ‘5am’, a potentially unfinished track which was formerly named ‘February’. It wasn’t written in February and was actually written on the day of the performance, which is maybe why it’s called ‘5am’.

In between songs she was having a little banter with the audience and stated she was nervous, but you really couldn’t tell. Every line was delivered so gracefully and the gentle tone and breathiness of her vocals alongside the short and clipped phrasing of the lyrics created a sense of vulnerability, like Steff was telling us the personal stories of her life. Each song has been written with so much emotion, and the way they were translated and performed acoustically made them feel so much more intimate. I must mention that this wasn’t Steff’s usual setup, this was just her and her guitar. But after that performance, I think she needs to be releasing more acoustic songs.