Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

Genre: Dub

  • Seefeel In Dub

    Seefeel In Dub

    We reported from Seefeel’s spellbinding in peformance in Manchester last year (read all about it here) and since then there has been more activity, not least a stunning reissue of their early EPs collected along with the legendary Aphex Twin remixes as ‘Pure Impure’ which means their incredible back catalogue is pretty much all ‘back in print’. To celebrate, Mark Clifford has created a solo, audio-visual show for a short tour effectively doing Seefeel ‘In Dub’.

    Support tonght comes from Crimewave who we saw recently in Manchester and his heavy monster beats land very well once again, channeling The Young Gods, Meat Beat Manifesto and imperial phase Hip Hop coupled with vocals and layers of guitar fx.

    There’s a modest sized crowd in by the time Mark takes to the stage. It’s Sunday, its the end of Half Term and to be fair a Laptop/Mixer performance isn’t much of a spectator sport. What made Seefeel truly special is they were (are) a group that brilliantly blurred the line between purely electronic/sampled music and band performances to the point where it’s hard to pinpoint who is playing what. Without Sarah on vocals, Mark on guitar, live bass and drums it does just become – someone with a Latop and some knobs to twiddle – albeit that someone is responsible for some my favourite and most treasured music. But I’m here for it and the faithful are here for it too.

    The visuals are curiously minimal too but based on a simple but clever idea – A camera pointing at the stage and repeating the absence of anything other than the edge of the Mixer table – using infinity and video feedback chaos to create patterns and interference – I can’t help thinking it would have worked better if Mark had stood centre stage and give the camera more information to deal with but it’s strangely effective and fits the musical theme. It’s one that is crying out for a more immersive venue space where you could really go to town on it.

    There’s no faulting the majestic music, as Clifford pulls up recognisable themes from the early EPs and the ‘Quique’ LP, goes rogue with the FX and gets into to remixing on the fly – deconstructing the tracks as he goes, pulling focus on sounds that are familiar from the originals – snatches of vocal or eerie washes of guitar and pushing the beats and basslines into the heavy dub zone. It’s great to hear and makes me think a whole LP of Dub remixes would be very welcome or even just some soundboard recordings of these shows – just dropping that hint right there.

    So as wonderful as the music was – it didn’t quite work as a performance tonight. In a smaller venue or maybe presented like one of those ‘Boiler Room’ sets where people get in amongst it and watch the artist at close quarters it would have been much more engaging – in a underoccupied gig venue on a sobering Sunday night in Leeds, not so much.

  • Seefeel

    Seefeel

    I first saw Seefeel 30 odd years ago supporting Cocteau Twins and was immediately grabbed by the fact that while they presented as a traditional 4 piece guitar band, they didn’t sound like a ‘beat combo’ at all – swirling, looped sounds, distant vocals mangled so the line between voice and synthesised sound becomes blurred, and great thwacking bass (memorably played by Darren Seymour – twirling it around his head like it was a majorettes baton). Truly in a class of their own and I’ve been an avid fan ever since.

    The band have returned, sporadically over the years, and got some critical reappraisal recently with the material they recorded for Warp records being reissued as an excellent box set complete with a wodge of unreleased gems that – unlike a lot of ‘extra tracks’ are well worth your attention. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new mini-LP ‘dropped’ earlier this year on Warp. ‘Everything Squared’ is delicious and bridges the gap between the billowing clouds of looped guitar and sub-bass of their earlier stuff and the spartan, icy plains of their mid-period work.

    A gig by these is a rare thing indeed and with no danger of a moshpit I get down the front for the full arsequake bass experience and perhaps to try and figure out how Seefeel works. They’re down to a 3 piece tonight with core members Sarah Peacock and Mark Clifford joined by a bass player (I didn’t catch his name and this reviewer thought it was a returning Seymour?) and while the bass stays firmly below head height you could lie down and take a nap on the colossal subsonic waves coming off the stage.

    The set opens with ‘Climatic Phase’ from their debut ‘Quique’ and it is one of those goose-bump moments as they gradually build the track up from looping samples, fragments of vocal and guitar building toward the dub bass and everything locks in. They still sound like nobody else. The set mixes those early Too Pure tracks with a selection from the new record and you can’t see the join. It’s a privilege to watch them at work, up close – and it’s not as if we’re seeing behind the curtain as I’m none the wiser how they make a few FX pedals, some guitars, a laptop and some singing sound so other-worldly.

    It’s a relatively short set but warmly received by a very attentive audience of old heads and few curious pop-crazed youngsters who hopefully leave inspired like I was 30 years hence. Leave ’em wanting more I guess, and we do. Their is talk of a new full length LP and apparently Mark Clifford only puts out a fraction of the material he records so hopefully I will have my atoms rearranged by Seefeel again before too long. Majestic.