The Bad Siege

That's not actrually how you spell "trebuchet"...

DEATHRAY TREBUCHAY/ STORNOWAY/ JALI FILLI CISSOKHO, Isis Tavern, 12/6/09

“Are you going to the festival?” asks a local to his mate as we cross Iffley Lock. “Are you going to [ironic emphasis] rock out?” Doubt it, chum, for this is a record launch from delicate folkpoppers Stornoway, in the The Isis Tavern’s bucolic grounds, for well-heeled neo-hippies and fragile indie children. So, in place of warm Fosters we got organic ale, in place of tight black jeans we got flouncy floral dresses, and in place of a harried, leather-clad engineer we got – well, some things are constant, perhaps. Kora player Jali Filli Cissokho provides a suitably warm introduction, the sounds from his West African harp growing from tiny wisps of melody to huge clouds of sound as his thumbs writhe around the strings. It’s easy enough to drift away to Cissokho’s gorgeous set, but he’s not pandering to the lentil burger World Music morass, his playing incorporates hard attacks and sudden spasms of notes as well as mellifluous fluidity. This is intricate, intelligent music for active listening, not pallid chillout sessions.

In a near Stalinist act of historical revisionism, Stornoway have announced that “Zorbing” shall be their debut single; any records you may already own by them are the result of fevered imaginations and possible bourgeous deviation, and mention of them will land you swiftly in a Headington Quarry labour camp. Their songs are so timeless, it feels as though Stornoway have been around forever, though it was only three short years ago that we first saw them, playing, in all honesty, an uneven set. They’ve come light years since, but never lost their oddity and awkward affability: after a brief vamping intro their first track tonight is “On The Rocks” a treble-saturated, reverb-drenched fuzz that is like nothing other Oxford bands would write, and is also illogically beautiful – the cymbals sound like jagged ice, the guitar harmonics flash like winter sunlight, and the glorious vocal arches above everything like Rainbow Bridge. The set builds to a restrained climax, and encapsulates everything wonderful about their twitchy bonhomie and nervous charm. They even have a real Zorb terrorising the audience to the front. If you want to break the Oxford pasty, apparently all you need is a giant inflatable Kiwi sphere.

As they look like Dogs D’Amour dressed by Timmy Mallett, and play rag week ska rock, Deathray Trebuchay satisfy those who missed “The Good Fish Guide” from Stornoway’s set. Definitely not us, in other words. But unexpectedly, just by dint of a great bassist, some fluent inventive horn lines, and the fact they’re (whisper it) having fun, this London act wins us over until we’re punching the air to their knockabout jazz punk with the rest of them. Rocking lock man would have approved…unless he was one of the many people phoning in noise complaints, anyway. Childish, of course, but this makes us love the evening even more.