An OFF Night

I've just realised that this is the second time I've reviewed The Braindead Collective, and the second time that Human Leaguer Phil Oakey's fringe has been mentioned. The oddest thing is that one of the Collective is bassist (and one of Oxford's best and most understated musicians, in my non-humble opinion), Phil Oakley. Coincidence, or labyrinthine sub-conscious connection?

THOMAS TRUAX/ ERIC CHENAUX/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE/ LUM COL CON PIX – OFFshoot, Holywell, 6/3/10


OFFshoot is the Oxford Folk Festival fringe. Well, in fringe terms Lum Col Con Pix make Phil Oakey look like Duncan Goodhew, we haven’t the merest conception how they relate to folk music in any form, as they hover styli above record decks, using the natural warp of vinyl to create jagged loops. It’s fascinating that the layered fragments are of a similar brief length, yet have such different sonic qualities, and the set feels intriguingly like battling through a blizzard of cracked Lego blocks.

Improv scamps The Braindead Collective play traditional and well known themes tonight and, the odd synth burr or hushed scuffle aside, sound like a slightly augmented pub song session – which is no bad thing, and the set is gorgeous, especially a plangent take on Mercury Rev’s “Holes”, Chris “Harry Angel” Beard’s delicate voice sounding like Art Garfunkel bounced to us from the surface of the moon.

Toronto’s Eric Chenaux has a warm intimate voice and a neat lutelike guitar plucking technique, but he doesn’t leave a huge impression. His songs are decent, but feel as though the salient points are all missing, like a half-sucked sweet. Pleasant? Definitely. Interesting? Let’s just say, on the fringe.

Despite his famed mechanical instruments, like the product of dusty frontier cybernetics, it’s easy to see a link between Thomas Truax and folk, his songs all have the easy narrative drive of Cash, and the downhome grotesquery of Waits. This is an intermittently successful show by his standards, but the mixture of eloquent storytelling and clunky cabaret wins out. He embodies folk as low-end showbiz, rather than heartfelt cri de coeur: Furry Lewis jamming at a medicine show, not Ewan MacColl rallying the workers. With his joco-futurist noise makers and his twists on rock and blues stylings, Truax makes the whole of the twentieth century into a carny freakshow: no wonder he made that David Lynch tribute album.