Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

Genre: Psychedelia

  • Spiritualized

    Spiritualized

    Pure Phase 30th Anniversary Tour

    I’m not the biggest fan of ‘Classic Album’ gigs. They can take the element of surprise and spontaneity out of show and, as is proved time and time again, what may be a perfectly sequenced album on record doesn’t always make a great night out.
    ‘Pure Phase’ is a curious choice for a live show and I’m intrigued to see what Jason Pierce and the current line up of musicians that comprise Spiritualized are going to do with it not least because in more recent years they’ve followed a more accessible path or, leaned into their most popular LP ‘Ladies & Gentlemen…’


    I’ve always been fond of ‘Pure Phase’ but it’s not an easy listen for the innocent bystander. It’s long, and it’s an uneven mix of scuzzy space rock, electronic experiments, extended blasts of noise and gospel tinged bliss outs not to mention the title track – 6 minutes of gently undulating organ drone (which reoccurs throughout the album as a backdrop and used to be used at gigs as a call to the audience to get away from the bar and assemble, ready to begin)

    Uncompromising, thrilling and perfectly out of step with the curdling of Britpop into Loaded Lad culture it was on heavy rotation on our hi-fi. I’m surprised to read it was seen as a commercial failure and Jason thinks it’s one of his most underappreciated records.

    I saw the band a lot around the time of it’s release and quite a lot of tracks weren’t performed live or were very different from the album versions which Jason famously laboured over..obsessively mixing two masters (one for each ear) and meticulously working on his perfect edit.


    Although other dates on this short tour have sold out, the idea of 2 hours of experimental, gospel-tinged swamp blues would seem to have somewhat selective appeal on a Monday night in Manchester and there are a fair few empty seats (the promoters charging 60-70 quid for seats closer to the front hasn’t helped and notably the cheap seats up in the gods are full)
    Last couple of times I saw the group they had a packed house and in fact were playing material from their more recent LPs. The audience seemed quite happy with those more song-based selections from ‘And Nothing Hurt’ and ‘Everything was Beautiful’ and there was very little looking back to the 90s – all the more surprising that Jason has chosen to go way back.

    The musicians file on and it’s clear Jason hasn’t skimped on hiring plenty of musicians to recreate this complex record – we’ve got a brass section and a string section as well as two backing vocalists joining the core band line-up. Jason walks on and gives his customary wave (a man of few words on stage) and – this is a big deal for long term fans, he’s decided to do this one standing up (rather than perched on a stool JJ Cale style). The Spaceman means business.


    The full band are put to good use and I’m immediately struck by little details – the intro to ‘Medication’ reveals the Brian Wilson influence Jason used to talk about in interviews and echoes California Girls or something from Pet Sounds – complete with odd little percussive elements before the full band crash in for the choruses with brass and strings to the fore. ‘The Slide Song’ – never played before (AFAIK) comes to life next with the brass and string elements revealing the song that was one of those most misted up by the swirling, disorientating mix on the record.

    They’ve decided to do the whole album in the recorded sequence which means they recreate the wall of noise that is ‘Electric Phase’ most effectively – this gets a big cheer (Spiritualized fans love a bit of a noise freak out and there are plenty more of those to come). ‘These Blues’ with duelling harmonicas by Jason and Doggen is perhaps the first big ‘banger’ of the night. ‘Take Good Care of It’ was already in their early 90s set in a much more traditional form that would have fitted on their debut album but the Pure Phase version was a startlingly different track – a big floating cloud of gliding sax, organs and a vaguely dubby bassline – and amazingly it is this version that they somehow manage to recreate live.

    I get the sense that this is the kind of gig Jason has always wanted to do – lots of improvisation – horns blasting, trumpet solos, beautiful strings, belting gospel harmony vocals, keyboard and piano veering into free jazz at times rather than 3 chord riffs – he’s still standing up and I can imagine that behind the shades he is really enjoying himself up there.

    The centrepiece of the set is a cover of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Born Never Asked’ segued into ‘Electric Mainline’ and this time they do veer off the rather underwhelming album version and go for a full Kosmiche rhythm driven version with countermelodies spiralling around the venue. This is followed by the euphoric ‘Lay Back in the Sun’ and ‘Good Times’ – perhaps the lightest and most song-based tracks in the set that for any other band would be staples of any gig but I can’t remember the last time I heard these played live.

    They spare us the full 6 minutes of Pure Phase on a loop but they let enough of it play out to say it was on the setlist and the final straight is two big, soulful ballads that close the LP. The Beach Boys influence reveals itself again in the intro to Feels Like Going home which with Pet Sounds percussion and – a Banjo! I hadn’t realised that was on the record but sure enough – there it is and it sounds wonderful – and with the brass section I’m struck by the idea that Spiritualized have all the equipment required to knock out a couple of Dexys numbers if they chose to Too Rye Aye it up a bit – and then come to my senses.

    They get a well deserved standing ovation and encore – for which they pull out a song from the aforementioned ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ and it’s a mightily powerful ‘Cop Shoot Cop’ – all 15 minutes of it – going deep into a Dr John swampy groove which seems to have everyone hanging on to every note and a chance for all the musicians and singers to have one final blast.

    So it was a good idea to play Pure Phase. This isn’t really an exercise in nostalgia, rather we get to hear new life breathed into an old record and freed from the obsessive detail of the studio mix it’s quite spectacular. I’ve read that Jason wants to do more of these shows and hope he does because more people need to hear the record like this – it’d make a great live LP too.

    I see a fair few people carrying copies of the LP home into the night and hopefully they’ll discover Pure Phase for the first time or do it all over again.

  • The Horrors & Mynk

    The Horrors & Mynk

    Following a triumphant headline set at Manchester Psychfest earlier this year, those little Horrors are back with what promoters like to call an ‘Underplay’ tour –

    i.e. a run of intimate shows at smaller venues. Not to suggest that their appeal has become more selective (the tour sold out in no time), rather after a few years of minimal Rock Action for The Horrors this is to give them a chance to get up close and personal with an audience again and road test a few new songs ready for next year which promises a new LP ‘Night Life’, festival appearances and presumably some bigger stages.

    The Horrors are also using this opportunity to showcase some new bands they want us to hear- different supports each night of the tour and we get a good one in the shape of MYNK – a London post-punk power trio who currently have just one digital EP to their name so far- produced by Horrors frontperson Faris Badwan no less – entitled ‘Pleaser’ and very good it is too

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR2qDsltSMU

    MYNK play as the venue slowly fills up and I find myself drawn into their world rather than lingering at the back – singer Bex drives the songs along with thundering bass and interacts with guitarist Lewis who plays the kinds of guitar I like – spectral not-quite riffs that hang somewhere in mid air. Just when you think this is yr standard Banshees/Wire/PiL style post-punk business – they swerve this way and that (both physically and sonically) and wrong-foot you – in a pleasingly disconcerting way. I’m into it, the gathering audience are too and I’ll definitely watch out for more MYNK – and so should you.

     

    So, The Horrors. I go back with these guys – not as far as their Screaming Lord Goth debut ‘Strange House’ (which lest we forget, got rave reviews at the time) but certainly to their curveball 2nd LP ‘Primary Colours’ which I saw debuted at a raucous show in Manchester back in 2009 (the long, lost Ruby Lounge). This saw them find a sweet-spot between their B-movie horror shtick, My Bloody Valentine churning guitars and metronomic Kosmiche Musik and since then it’s been fun to follow them down a few unlikely paths – early Simple Minds-esque Big Music on ‘Skying’, the Numanoid/Depeche black-clad disco of ‘V’ and most recently a somewhat controversial step into Cyborg-metal with the ‘Lout’ EP – but always in the same skinny jeans and pasty complexions – the essential heart of the Horrors has always been there. Their only misstep, perhaps the somewhat directionless ‘Luminous’ LP notable by its absence from tonight’s set – although it has a few fan favourites on it too.

    The other thing about the Horrors is they never seemed to play quite as often as I’d have liked – and like The Fall or New Order (before they turned Pro) they could be a bit erratic – indeed at Leeds in 2022 for a one-off show – the band seemed to struggle to fill the gaps left by former Keyboard player Tom Furse and a poor sound mix rendering Faris inaudible – which made for a frustrating and dispiriting experience for both band and audience. “Goodbye Forever” was the parting shot.

    So it is a relief when they lurch onto the stage with the jabbing electronic stabs of ‘Whiplash’ (from the Lout EP) and we get a clearly audible Faris and the band in all their Horror.

    Faris, still like a Gerald Scarfe cartoon of a rock star, lurches forward from his mic stand staring the audience out and leading the merry dance – the somewhat demonic Rhys Webb has decided to paint his face with panstick which drips down his face as the gig goes on to add a nice bit of Sensational Alex Harvey showmanship to the occasion. Josh the guitarist hangs in the shadows sending those signature churning washes of guitar up into the stratosphere and they crash into ‘Three Decades’, the first of 5 tracks from ‘Primary Colours’ – and we can relax cos there’s a band up on stage who look like they were born to do this – this is clearly going to be fucking ace. And it is.

    There is a new drummer (not sure what happened to ‘Coffin’ Joe Spurgeon) but Jordan Cook does a sterling job and Amelia Kidd (who we can’t see hidden behind the speaker stack from where we’re stood) is getting busy with synths and backing vocals that are so crucial to the Horrors sound – she brings what was missing from that Leeds gig and injects some feminine cool into proceedings. If anything, she could do with her being louder in the mix – there is a point during ‘Sea Within A Sea’ where she gets the keyboard riff going and the phones go up and the energy level soars – more Keyboards please!

    We get 3 new songs from the forthcoming ‘Night Life’ the first of which is ‘Trial By Fire’ – it’s classic Horrors but with brutal bursts of violent distortion and Faris (who is of Palestinian heritage if you didn’t know), leaves us in no doubt about what might be driving some of this newfound fury.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV69ePJv8Yo

    It sets the scene for a new LP which, based on what has been played and released so far seems to tie up the clues left from ‘Strange House’ up to ‘Lout’ and maybe they’ve arrived at a sound which is truly theirs .

    For a band accused of ‘Record Collection Rock’ (see also Primal Scream) tonight everything hangs together and you start to see a band with a strong identity that are built to last – with the set ending with their most poptastic moment, the weirdly bleak dance anthem ‘Something to Remember Me By’ but even that fits seamlessly.

    As always there are shouts at the encore for ‘Sheena is a Punk Rocker’ and cuts from ‘Strange House’ and – who knows maybe a veteran Horrors will revisit those one day but for now we’re looking at band who have tunes to burn (and they don’t play all of them) a very promising new record and, still only in their 30s, maybe they’re only just getting started….