Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

RIYL: Stereolab

  • Peel Dream Magazine & Tulpa

    Peel Dream Magazine & Tulpa

    It’s a warm balmy evening and so even though it’s Monday there’s lots of people enjoying the last rays on Stevenson Square (you take your beer garden opportunities when they arise round these parts) but that hasn’t put off a decent crowd descending the steps into the grotty but welcoming Soup cellar – amid the scuzzy, graffiti strewn vibe (CBeebies GBs I call it) the aircon is on, the vibe is cool and slightly damp – and there’s some suitably summery rock action going down.

    First up, from Leeds, Tulpa who I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing before. They’re a four piece and I’m immediately taken by their sound which has some bendy Kevin Shields guitar noise mixed with post-punk dynamics and, importantly, catchy and memorable melodic drive. What really gets them extra points is they do something too many young bands shy away from – they aren’t afraid to get a good head of steam going and keep it locked rather than switching to the next song. Tulpa let the instrumental sections of the songs go round a few bars to give time for some nice, grungey riffage and let the twin guitars ring for a bit – not to the point of self-indulgence or (god help us) ‘jamming’, but long enough to have impact and reel the listener in. It works and they have the audience right on side. They’ve got some great material, they’re cool, they play with quiet confidence and verve. My guess is next time I see them they’ll be headlining – they’re very good indeed.

    Up next, from LA, Peel Dream Magazine. I’ve been very much enjoying their records and this is my first time seeing them live. Their music takes some cues from shoegaze, dream pop, Avant pop and the smarter, quirkier end of the American songbook (Van Dyke Parks for instance). It’s very cleverly produced, enigmatic and quietly remarkable. They have some obvious influences, they clearly have spent a great deal of time poring over the back catalogue of Stereolab (seems a reasonable way to spend your time) – but they do it in such a way that they add a whole new dimension of their own. I like it when I hear an artist reimagining music I grew up with in their own image and taking new steps those artists didn’t take. PDM have a habit of homing in on elements in music that I really like that makes me think “oh you’re hearing that the way I hear it”. PDM are so good you can imagine them being cited as an influence by future artists. That in fact, is how Pop history works kids.

    I do wonder how they might translate their elegant, multi-instrumental music in a low-budget live format. With the best will in the world, I doubt it would be financially viable for PDM to bring a vibraphone player (never mind said instrument) on a short European club tour. The answer is to take the songs and reframe them for a 4 piece guitar band – and it works a treat. They do use a bit of ‘track’, just to add some keyboard backing which the drummer fires off from his pads. Much like High Llamas (who they don’t imitate but share some musical DNA) the songs are good enough that they can stand up with a basic band format. This gives a different spin on the songs compared to their records – in fact PDM positively rock out at times, particularly when leaning into their earlier, louder songs.

    There’s a really good crowd in, in spite of the not entirely Pop-friendly Monday night and outdoorsy weather. PDM leader Joseph Stephens is a man of few words, and has said he doesn’t like gigs where people are talking. Fortunately tonight, in our musty cellar underneath the Northern Quarter people are getting into it, we’re all on the same page and, for both bands it’s very much a Listening Room.

  • eat-girls

    eat-girls

    This is my first gig at the former (infamous) Old Mother Macs pub, now relaunched as The Rat and Pigeon. It’s still very much an old school backstreet boozer but with enough of a facelift to make it feel friendly enough and the youthful clientele challenge the myth that ‘ver kids’ don’t like clustering around a pub table for a chinwag, a bag of crisps and a pint of mild… these lot do.

    Upstairs is a very small but well appointed gig venue, about the size of the back room of The Castle but with space for a corner bar and back room…and it has a sound and lighting rig powerful enough for a venue three times the size. Small enough for local artists and international bands taking their first steps on the circuit  – and indeed tonight’s turn is French trio eat-girls (the lower case and hyphen is important apparently), over from Lyon for their first ever UK dates.

    They start by donning those head-light things joggers wear to illuminate each member of the band and the audience – it’s a neat trick and straight away they grab your attention. The striking three piece Amélie, Elisa, and Maxence play keys, guitar and bass with everyone covering vocals – often the track drops away to them all singing in unison – their “electronic madrigals” as they put it. There’s no drummer but the backing track is punchy enough and the propulsive bass and guitars provides enough movement, spontaneity and energy to compensate for the relentless, pre-programmed beatbox. 

    I don’t want to resort to that old hackery of comparing these young artists to other, older bands but I’m going to anyway. There’s definitely an echo of early Stereolab in the taught rhythms, vocal rounds and a certain sense of utilitarian style. They draw from Post-Punk, particularly the clipped, economical tunesmithery of Wire, The Banshees and Joy Division at their most motorised. The organ drones and keyboards recall the dreamily European, cinematic swoon of Tuxedomoon or Marine.

    But enough of the comparisons – eat-girls have plenty of ideas of their own with moody synth textures and atmospheric samples and dubby FX adding to a swirly miasma. You can dance to them too – and they inspire some serious frugging in the room among the pop-crazed youngsters as the room fills and warms up. They have a deft knack of veering from total seriousness, to bopping around with abandon- often during the same song. 

    I’m totally sold on these – easily one of the best new groups I’ve seen in a long time. Their mighty fine LP ‘Area Silenzio’ is out now and don’t miss the chance to see eat-girls.

    They will haunt you. 

    https://eat-girls.bandcamp.com/album/area-silenzio

  • Dummy & Three Quarter Skies

    Dummy & Three Quarter Skies

    Back in my favourite basement which, once again has been transformed into a sonic cathedral by some adventurous artists

    First up, a nice surprise. Simon Scott, who by day is the drummer with Slowdive – now well into their remarkably successful 2nd act – but is also well established as an artist in his own right with a dizzying array of musical projects and soundtracks to his name. Tonight he performs as Three Quarter Skies who have a new record ‘Fade In’ to play to us. Shoegazers will be in familiar sonic territory however this is a much looser and more lo-fi proposition than Slowdive – Simon fronts a 3 piece band singing and playing guitar and electronics and he’s joined by a simpatico guitarist and drummer who whip up great billowing clouds of noise that reminds of those more exploratory groups in this field like The Telescopes, Spacemen 3 and also the fragile songwriting of the mythical Flying Saucer Attack. It’s loud, enveloping and rather marvellous.

    This is my 2nd time seeing Dummy, who headlined a ‘Mood Swings’ band night in this very venue a couple of years ago and I was very much taken with them and the many musical boxes they ticked with me. They’re back over from LA and getting toward the end of a pretty extensive few weeks schlepping around Europe and beyond. It’s fair to say they look completely knackered – but this doesn’t stop them putting in a brilliantly powerful and idiosyncratic performance – and like the Portishead album they borrowed their band name off – it’s hard to predict the musical ebb and flow they take us on.

    Everyone has keyboards as well as guitars and drums so one minute we get Brian Eno style, ambient interludes and the next minute we’re into My Bloody Valentine guitar bending freakouts, the electro-glide of Curve or the metronomic locked grooves of early Stereolab, Broadcast or Yo La Tengo. On songs like ‘Unshaped Road’ they show that 90s Trip Hop influence as a sweet pop vocal rides over a killer bass riff that could be from Massive Attack. That’s not to say they are derivative or slavishly copying those artists – they have a unique style of their own and they knit a lot of different moods and sounds together and somehow make it all coherent – their track Blue Dada is a good example – it starts very much in that early 90s Too Pure era Stereolab Groop Groove but takes on a strange little life of it’s own and its that sense of surprise in the choice of melody and dynamics that sets Dummy apart.

     

    https://youtu.be/_w8942xcHY4?si=ZQbvcSmusYLmyS9T

    Tonight suggests that Dummy, as good as their records are, are a band that really need to be seen live to really get what they’re about – so if this hard working band come to your town don’t pass up the chance to see them bring the noise.

     

  • Immersion (Colin Newman & Malka Spigel)

    Immersion (Colin Newman & Malka Spigel)

    While sensible people are staying home with the immersion on, I’m braving the sub-zero ice and snow ‘cos Immersion are on.

    Last time I saw Colin Newman on a stage he was fronting his day-job band, Wire, at Band on the Wall just before Covid curtailed their touring plans in 2020. With the band now seemingly on hiatus (check out Matthew Simm’s Memorials and Graham Lewis’ latest – both mighty fine ) Colin and his partner, musician and artist Malka Spigel have been keeping very busy with a weekly radio show and reviving Immersion which started 30(!) years ago as a way of exploring the duo’s fascination for club music and electronica. I saw them play a mesmerising set at Wire’s ‘retrospective’ comeback at the Royal Festival Hall in 2000 (we only have this excerpt:)

    – and tonight’s set up is very similar – a bank of electronics and the duo silhouetted against a video projection except tonight, they are facing the audience. There are songs too, with vocals from both and Colin occasionally reaches for a guitar and Malka is bashing away at a Korg synthesiser with considerable gusto – so although the austerity budget didn’t stretch to bringing a live drummer over for the tour, it makes this feel like a gig you can engage in rather watching some laptop jamming.

    There are familiar, signature drones which remind you of their initial incarnation and the downright essential ambient classic ‘Low Impact’ but Immersion has morphed into something more open-ended and actually very danceable – there are beats galore and trouser-flapping bass as well as some very enjoyable detours into kosmiche musik and Dreampop (if we need to get into genres).

    There is an airy, almost new-age positivity about Immersion which might sound a bit flowery in less talented hands but with two of the coolest musicians on the planet in charge who know of what they sing/speak, it works and the audience response reflects this right back – all smiles. The audience is a mix of people of a certain age but also curious younger folk who are enjoying the hefty basslines and beats these two, ridiculously youthful 70 year olds are firing off and we’re all moving with them. Immersion are bringing their sound and art to your town – go and see them!