If there’s one concept set steadfastly in the foundation
of grassroots music, it’s that covers band are awful. Soulless.
Unworthy. Just shit. But, contentious though it might be, I feel
that this platinum rule can sometimes be broken, and it’s possible to play
another’s compositions and still be artistically valid. Take Jacqueline Du Pre; she could squeeze
more originality and invention into 8 bars than most denizens of Oxfordshire
will manage in a career of writing original songs (and, let’s be honest, if
you’ve heard B B King, Ed Sheeran and The Arctic Monkeys, you’ve effectively
already heard 25% of all songs – ahem – written
in the county in the past month). So,
for this reason I’m very happy to devote my column this month over to a band I stumbled
across at the Cowley Road Carnival, The Temple Funk Collective, a brass septet
(or brass sextet with a drummer, if you like), performing covers and medleys
with notable wit and musicianship. From
the moment I heard them sliding “Superstition” effortlessly into the Superman theme, I was convinced the
band had no dearth of ideas - phrasing and arrangement take skilful inspiration
too, you know.
Highlight of a set of insightful segues was a mega-mash-up
of 90s chart dance hits, from 2 Unlimited to Corona via Outhere Brothers,
Vengaboys, C & C Music Factory, and a few others my blushing brain won’t
dredge up for fear of being thrown out of the music journo fraternity - feel
the funky force of those sousaphone basslines!
If you’re reading this infuriated that your proper original band should
be on this page, never mind, channel that and write some new songs: remember,
it’s I-IV-V, and “baby” rhymes with “maybe”.
SUPERNORMAL, Braziers Pk, 8-10/8/14
Supernormal might be synonymous with petrifying noise and
introspective jazz abstraction, but it’s not averse to a few pop thrills. Take opening act Ravioli Me Away, a charmingly inept pop confection whose first
number is not a billion leagues away from Daphne & Celeste’s “Ooh, Stick
You”, and who later touch on Italo house and Bow Wow Wow euphoria, with the
clunky abandon of Dog Faced Hermans.
A little of this fun could have enlivened The Jelas’ set, which is all angular
intricacy, somewhere between Cap’n Jazz and Badgewearer; the sax attack is
effective, but overall the set lacks bite.
Down a muddy slope, that becomes increasingly treacherous as the day progresses,
we seek out the barn, a haven for the more refined artistic activity at
Supernormal (including a Saturday morning life drawing class), and home for
some of this year’s highlights. Rebecca Lenon’s piece “Diet Terror”,
might not be one of them, but the spectacle of someone hitting a floor tom
repeatedly below a film of a dog being hoovered whilst somebody wrapped in
plastic sits with their back to us is intriguing...although not nearly as
entertaining as the panicky looks towards the exit of someone who is worried
they might be trapped here for another hour.
Despite the programme leading us to expect something
resembling Can, Piper’s Son offer a
sort of hobo ambience, piling roots music offcuts together in a fashion which
recalls Marc Ribot, which will do just fine instead. As will the delicious pad thai we slurp down
on the way to the main stage.
Supernormal should be celebrated for providing a decent range of food
and drink at very reasonable prices when most festivals resemble overcrowded
Waitrose gulags around dinnertime.
Misleading krautrock allusions are nothing compared to Moonbow’s programme write-up, which
promises choreography, set design and osmology (look it up; we did), whereas
what we actually get is two people playing dubby synthesised pop. What’s wrong with just saying that, eh? Especially seeing as Moonbow are actually
bloody good at it, creating a glistening aura of woozy positivity that’s
somewhere between Fixers and a My Little Pony cartoon, sweetened by lovely
Omnichord drizzles. Speaking of drizzles,
it’s a bit of a pity that this, some of the summeriest music ever made, is
interrupted by the outbreak of an intense downpour that lasts the rest of the
evening.
You can tell a lot about a festival in the rain: at some
people ignore the music and go play in the mud; at others, everyone goes home
or hides in beer tents until someone off the telly comes onstage; at
Supernormal it seems to make very little difference, and in fact the crowd
watching Brighton’s Speak Galactic on the Nest Stage seems larger and more effervescent
than an hour earlier. Only fair, as this
might well be the act of the day, giving wonky Dinosaur Jr style tunes a sonic
makeover with plenty of early techno tricks, in a style we call Slack Electro. At one point they get a little trendily
bombastic, recalling the likes of Cut Copy, but manage to pull it back for more
Model 500 grunge. We wrote a lot more in
praise of them in our notebook, but unfortunately it dissolved before we
reached the end of the page. Barberos follow them up, and insanely
the crowd is even bigger and more supportive, despite the rain being harder, if
anything. Their triple drumkit avalanche
is effective, but what we remember most is the sight of steam billowing from
their stockinged heads as they pummel away.
Gnod’s music
is seemingly even more soluble than our cheap stationery, fizzing away into a
single drone like a Disprin in a kettle.
Whilst their endless thumps, hums and delayed vocals sound pleasant,
especially when a Gregorian chant recording is thrown over the top, we’re hard
pressed to say it made a vast impression.
Bong, who follow them on the
main stage, do the same thing, but make it sound about twenty times better,
which is part of the mystery of minimal noise rocking – why is it sometimes
electrifying, and sometimes just annoying?
Although we imagine Bong are named after their naughty smoking apparatus
of choice, we prefer to imagine they’re referring to the effect of being stuck
inside Big Ben at midnight, repetitive clangs destroying your cranium. We go for a walk in the pitch black trees
behind the stage during the set which, with the Old Testament weather still
pounding down, feels properly terrifying.
In between the barn offers another highlight in the shape
of Sarah Angliss’ automata. Sadly, some of them have got damp whilst
being loaded in, and the set is a little compromised, but when she uses a
theremin as a midi trigger to alter the speed of a vocal sample, whilst her
Ealing Feeder carillon plays itself and a robotic crow stares you out, there’s
a pier-end eeriness that is unnerving; unnerving in the way a nursery rhyme is
scarier than a slasher flick. A
fascinating, unique set, and not one likely to grace many other festival stages
this year...unless the instruments get up and crash the bill themselves, which
we’re frankly not ruling out.
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