From the highs and lows, to the tos-and-fros—Biig Piig’s long-awaited debut album 11:11 is a rollercoaster ride to the core of her ever-changing musicality and mentality. The 27-year-old seems to give everything on the Dance-inflected record, but an hour’s company with the Irish-Londoner suggests that it’s barely the beginning.
Escaping January’s inclemency, Jess Symth and I are hidden away in some forgotten corner of Sony’s Kings Cross offices to discuss her long-awaited debut album,11:11. The rain outside has bled from the grey, wearisome sky throughout the morning, pulverising the ground and any distant memory of summer. And yet Jess eases the misery of the downbeat Tuesday morning. She’s a snapshot of sunshine whose omnipotent gaze and dulcet Cork cadence would lift even the dampest of spirits.
Better known by her puzzlingly playful moniker Biig Piig, the 27-year-oldIrish-Londoner (by way of a childhood stint in Spain) has been ubiquitous in theMetropolis’ bustling musical community since the release of her 2018 cult favourite debut EP “Big Fan of the Sesh, Vol. 1”, and the emergence of NiNE8, her “family outside of home.” The collective—which also boasts Jess’ college friends Lava La Rue and Mac Wetha as members—sprawls across a multi-disciplinary blanket; from a collaborative musical discography (that stretches from adored early singles “Ignant” and “Pusha” to various bodies of music including an EP, “Steal The Moon”, that was shared last year) to throwing parties and conceptualising visual worlds. “It’s always been about the culture, it’s always been about creating, it’s always been about: ‘London’s not as big as you think,’” Jess pinpoints on the NiNE8 philosophy. “Now we’re doing more events, which honestly is gorgeous because it opens up that ethos even more. But it’s still about the music—that’s never changed. It’s my favourite thing, writing together. We might not see each other as much as we used to because everyone’s busy, but when we lock in together and we’re able to catch up in that space, it’s special.
”The impact of NiNE8 stretches back to the genesis of Jess’ journey as Biig Piig. It was, after all, within her role in the collective that she found her feet as an artist, and got to grips with the art of live performance. It was also her close confidant and NiNE8’s chief producer Mac Wetha—whose fingerprints are smeared across Biig Piig’s sonic catalogue and is the beatsmith behind two tracks on 11:11—who convinced her to start sharing music under an alias. “I remember we were at [Mac’s house] and there were some tracks that I’d done over some beats that I just wanted to record, not [release]”she remembers. “I was so scared and so shy. And he was that person that said, ‘Jess you have to, just do it under some different name.’ He was so adamant that I put things out, and if I hadn’t been with friends like that who were so supportive and created a place to feel safe with expressing, I don’t think I would be doing this.”
Since augmenting her lease for artistry alongside her best mates, Jess has been on a stylistic escapade. Now, the music of Biig Piig is synonymous with transition, and with evolution. It’s rare to find an artist who has moved so swiftly, so confidently and so enigmatically through musical phases. From the dusty, DIY Soul and Hip-Hop of her debut EP, to her explorations with Dance and Electronic tendencies on 2020singles “Don’t Turn Around” and “Feels Right”, through to the sexy grunge of chromatic2023 mixtape “Bubblegum”, Jess has sonically shape-shifted through artistic eras, metamorphosing at each musical checkpoint. “Chaotic, just like I am as a person,” she laughs, reflecting on her progression. “I wouldn’t change it, you know? I love every part of the journey that I’ve had, and also I don’t feel like it’s a thing of never going back to those sounds. I’m never shutting doors on any of that, I just wanted to explore and feel things out in different ways and allow different inspirations to come in. I never thought this was where I would end up, but when do you?”
Reaching her grandest juncture to date—her debut album—Biig Piig’s musical and thematic approach is more assured than ever. The nucleus of 11:11 stems from its inaugural admission: “You could hit me with the bad news first,” she sings as the opening remark of the LP’s incepting cut “4am”. It’s a line written early on in the album’s construction, and one that perspicuously lays out the full record’s topsy-turvy tonal resonance. The lyric initiates the dichotomy of emotions that follows—the angst and the hope, the doubt and the self-realisation. “It’s basically navigating love and loss,”she explains. “Coming to terms with the twists and turns of what life is. I explore different relationships in it, there’s ones that are romantic and ones that are more family orientated. And also with self too, I’ve seen myself through so many different phases in the last two years. As an overarching thing, it’s making peace with the fact that you can’t control anything and it’s just the way things go. And being able to celebrate those things when that happens, even the sad bits. And showing all sides of myself, even parts that I’m not so confident in, or can’t dance through as much.
The 11-pronged palette splatters across shades of its makers’ eclectic colour-wheel; the chameleonic character of Jess and the sonic dexterity of Biig Piig alike.In both the musical and the personal though, club culture lies centric. “I guess that’s just me a little bit,” she shrugs warmly on the drive of hedonism and nightlife that reverberates through the record. “I love being able to get lots of people in a space where that’s held. Just drop everything at the door, come in and let go. It just makes you feel like you’re not alone. And there’s so many points in this record and bits of life where music really held me together, and as a whole that’s what [clubbing] represents to me.”
The album’s Dance-driven core (“Decimal”, “Ponytail”), anthemic Pop maximalism (“Favourite Girl”, “9-5”) and quiet moments of meditation (“Stay Home”,“Brighter Day”) are wide-spanning and immersive, and representative of a process that spread across nights out and mornings after in two of Europe’s most vibrant cities. “I made these songs between London and Paris, and I feel like you can hear that in the tracks,” she says. “It was just the moment that we were in. When it comes to the Poppier stuff, the Disco guitar, the French Pop synths, I feel like you can hear the place that we were in at the time. And then when it comes to more dancey tracks, it was just very in the moment. We didn’t really know what we were going into making it. It was just energy, it just felt like the right thing, but there was never a consideration of how it would end up.”
he significance of the album has been diluted somewhat in contemporary music. But for Jess, there’s magnitude in releasing the work that she has waited for and worked for years to unleash—in the nostalgic symbolism of what a record is, in the catharsis its creation gifted her, and in the impact it can, and will, have on the people who support her. “It means a lot,” she admits. “It’s so many memories and so many things that come together and I hope the people that listen to it can feel held by it too. I’d love for someone to find the record the same way that I found records asa kid. Like, this makes me feel seen, this makes you feel like I can lose myself in it.”
Inspired by her friends, her environment, her past and herself, Jess will continue to evolve through Biig Piig, and Biig Piig will do the same through Jess. With the first full-length dip into the cold shallows of pressure handled with warmth and understanding, now Jess Smyth can float towards whatever sunset she pleases. Where that will be, not even she knows. And there’s endless beauty in that. “Life is fickle,” she advises me before I once again tackle the mundanity of reality, unprotected by my new acquaintances’ dazzling shelter. “There’s not going to be moments all the time. There’s going to be times when those things go and you can’t get them back. So what are you going to do with now? That’s definitely been a lesson of the last few years. Just go for it, head first, because you might not get the chance again.”
Photography by Emily White
Styling by Valeria Chrampani
Words by Ben Tibbits
Hair by Yui Ozaki
Make-up by Georgia Hope
Nails by Ella Vivii at The Only Agency
Photography Assistant Alex Jose
Fashion Assistant Beth Darroch
Hair Assistant Rio Shinmaki
