Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

Genre: Goth

  • Dog Race & Flip Top Head

    Dog Race & Flip Top Head

    The silly season is coming to and end and darker nights means back rooms and basements are coming alive with music once again. Autumn 2025 kicks off with a double bill of encouragingly strange new sounds.

    First up is Flip Top Head from Brighton. They’re a 6 piece, crammed onto the small stage with keyboards, violin and guitars plus a deputising bassist drafted in having only rehearsed earlier that day not that you’d know it, such is the confidence with which the songs are attacked.

    There’s no obvious focal point – singer Bowie Bartlett (nominative determinism alert) is tucked away behind the PA but has an excellent, soaring voice as a counterpoint to the other singer Bertie who leans into the dreaded ‘Sprechgesang’ spoken word thing but not to the point where we’re looking at another Sleaford Yard Cleaners D.C. – far from it.

    The mix of soaraway and spoken is just right and musically things are an enjoyably disorientating mix of jazzy, folky, avant rock but with plenty of musical anchors and hooks to keep you interested. I like ’em.

    Headlining tonight are Dog Race. Early days for them but it’s a sell out show and there’s a definite buzz in the air. The band file on – I’m still getting used to the fact that Paul Calf moustaches, mullets and clobber last seen on Limahl from Kajagoogoo in 1983 are in vogue again but preferable to Library-hater Liam Gallagher and his fucking designer anorak gurning at me from billboards. Unlike the support, Dog Race have a very definite focal point in singer Katie Healy. Her voice, rising from deep and guttural, to screamy to an almost operatic warble is quite something. I hear a hint of Billy Mackenzie, Anohni/Anthony, and maybe going way back Lene Lovich. It lifts Dog Race sky high above the standard 2025 Indie competition – and although Healy is not exactly throwing shapes she puts in a completely gripping performance.

    Musically things are more conventional – bass driven, synth and guitar. The Cure, Joy Division, Soft Cell, Bauhaus…so far, so 4AD. The vocals take us to some uncanny spaces and the music needs to follow it – and sure enough there is an unnamed new song – written days earlier – where the band hang back and Healy plays solo on keys and we can hear the unconventional intonation and tone she can conjur up before she steps away and things explode. There’s something happening here. Quietly charismatic, unsettling and wonderfully gothic but in a very 2025 way rather than a retro 80s way – and there is some serious frugging and grooving going on in the audience.

    Darkness you can dance to.

  • Walker Not Walker

    Walker Not Walker

    I’m in a busy room above a pub on a Friday night in Glossop. Glasses are being clinked and over on the stage a tribute band are tuning up and getting ready to entertain the punters – except that there’s a swirling drone of discordant synthesised strings beginning to swell from the P.A. and that’s because 3 unassuming blokes in winter hats, jumpers and jeans are about to start their set – not with Sweet Caroline or Brown Eyed Girl but with…er…’The Electrician’ an extraordinarily dark, gothic epic from the 1978 Walker Brothers album ‘Nite Flights’. Of course this is no ordinary pub (it’s an independently run Vegan pub with it’s own brewery) and this is no ordinary night – our hosts are The Black Circle an arts collective who’ve been promoting a series of progressive and adventurous events but with a strong ethos of being welcoming and inclusive (i.e the ‘guest list’ is strictly for those with low incomes and the gigs are timed so people can get home before our creaky transport network winds down for the night – certain Manchester promoters should take note!)

    I’m in time to see support act Tekrar Eden who have come over the hills from Sheffield – a two piece – bass and drummer with beards, loops and samples – they’re rooted in Jazz but the more atmospheric, darker and electronic end of it with bass to the fore – albeit a bass with loads of strings on it that can play nice, weird chords. They’re really good and what they play seems a fitting preamble to the headliner.

    So, there was no way I was going to miss a band who describe themselves as “Mancunian goth/avant-rock power trio performing the music of Scott Walker and The Walker Brothers” and oh boy Walker Not Walker do not disappoint. So how on earth do you tackle the back catalogue of Scott Walker who went from child star, to 60s Pop Idol, to cult late 60s bedsit baroque icon, to being set up to fail as the next Tom Jones, to boozy 70s chicken-in-a-basket club turn and failing MOR recording artist, to spending the mid 90s onwards becoming one of the most uncompromising, imposing and extreme musical artists of the 21st Century? Well, let’s find out.

    Walker Not Walker’s set in fact draws heavily from 2 records. The first is Scott’s sole 1980s LP ‘Climate of Hunter’ – which is a fascinating and brilliant record and with guest spots from his pals Mark Knopfler and Billy Ocean, his record label might have expected this 60s star to boss the 80s like say, Steve Winwood did – but Scott had other ideas. The 2nd is the volcanic and frequently terrifying ‘Tilt’ – which came 11 years later and is the dividing line where you either go with it into the deep depths of what followed or you make your excuses and hurtle back (to the relative safety of those bleak but satisfying orchestral hits of Scott 1 to 4). This high art version of Scott – approaching Lieder (art song) territory is WNWs ‘sweet spot’ and so they do a magnificent job of ‘Patriot’ for instance – a long and complex piece from ‘Tilt’ (with whistling replacing the flute part). It’s amazing how well these songs fit the 3 piece goth power trio format – ‘Face on Breast’ is done with a propulsive motorik drive like Joy Division (which the recorded version does have but I’d never noticed before). The songs from ‘Climate of Hunter’ really come to life in this formation too – perhaps the closest Scott came to Post-punk and you’ll be wanting to play that record again after hearing WNW’s take on it.

    They dip into earlier stuff too – obviously without a massive string section it’s hard to busk songs from Scott’s 60s heyday with a gothic rock power-trio but they make light work of ‘On Your Own Again’ from Scott 4, ‘Black Sheep Boy’ from Scott 2 which provide calm between the stormier moments (WNW deploy explosions of feedback to emulate the string section). They close with an effortlessly gliding ‘Nite Flights’, the song that humbled Bowie & Eno having heard Scott and John Walker had stolen a march on them in moving Pop music forward into the future. Wow.

    This is music that was mostly never peformed live in Scott’s lifetime, and yet these 3 modest chaps (who break the spell with their reassuring between-song banter) make it work and bring these songs to life -and (sorry to labour the point) but I’m hearing this astonishing, hard to fathom music in a room above a pub in front of an appreciative audience gathered around old bar stools and tables.

    I can’t help thinking the man himself would have loved it not least because WNW were not overly reverential and seemingly fearless in their choice of his material. If you love Scott’s music do not pass up the chance to see Walker Not Walker….they’ll thrill you and thrill you and thrill you…..