Quick review of an all-dayer a little while ago, featuring a previously unseen paragraph, cut from Nightshift
because there wasn't room/ it was about a band from outside Oxon/ it was undbearably knowing.
ROYAL PARDON, MD, Bully, 19/9/15
It’s quite refreshing to find an all-dayer with no
trappings. The mysteriously named Royal
Pardon (“Run that past one again, footman”) from newcomer MD Promotions is not
tied to charity, advertising, label promotion or the dressing up box, it’s a
just a 7 hour selection of local music in a big beer-fuelled room, which is
more than enough justification for a day out.
Opener Kid Kin’s laptop is
broken, so we get a truncated, on the hoof mini-set of his texturally savvy
library music melodies. As ever, the
tenor of his De Wolfe electro is a delight, but this swiftly salvaged set is
perhaps indicative of a bill of often great music and great ideas that don’t
necessarily always make for great sets.
31hours are a
band for whom stylistic cohesion is probably not a major concern, though that’s
not to say their eclectic prog pop isn’t immensely pleasing. If there is a thematic anchor to their music
it’s that high fret-twiddling jam block-thwacking Afroals sound, which is
probably the least interesting element, outweighed by freeze-dried Glass
Animals balladry and lush Pompeii era Floyd soundscapes.
Pipeline’s funky
contemporary indie is a far simpler proposition, along the lines of The Wedding
Present without the poetry and Senseless Things without the tequila. The vocals are winningly effortless, and if
the set of snappy tunes runs out of steam slightly before the finish line, this
is a band that is maturing steadily.
We Have A Dutch
Friend, by contrast, have a long way to go.
Their blueprint of sweet Sundays lilts punctuated by strident
Chumabawamba folk harangues is viable enough, but the playing is messily
fragmented and joylessly stilted, probably because they appear petrified almost
to the point of collapsing; perhaps that lowlands connection could suggest
something to settle the nerves.
We’re used to Tiger
Mendoza’s hip-hop airs and post-EDM power pop, but tonight perhaps the best
moments are when angle-ground guitar thrashes are laid over asbestos beats in a
manner recalling light industrial acts like Ministry and Nitzer Ebb. Some of the transitions between tracks are
not as fluid as they might be, and sometimes different compositional elements
seems to jostle each other to get to the front of the mix, but overall this set
shows that ian De Quadros is an inventive and varied producer.
A small break is presumably there to let the engineer
grab some dinner and go and find more Cliff Richard records to play us, but we
return after 40 minutes to find the atmosphere changed for the better. Not only is the room thankfully a little
busier, but the later sets have a more coherent flavour, none more so than Cosmosis whose affable acoustic roots
rock (think Stone Temple Pilots busking Cure songs) is presented with such
unforced bonhomie even those of us who have an anaphylactic reaction to
wackiness get swept up in the japes. The
lead vocalist keeps looking shiftily from side to side, as if to check that
they’re getting away with it, but the set proves that music doesn’t have to be
serious to be worthwhile.
Duchess
announce that this is their last gig, which is a pity as their playing is
tighter than ever. It’s low-key as
valedictory sets go, but not short on energy, especially a bouncy “South
Parade”. As well as inheriting Paul
Simon’s trick of slipping filched global drum patterns underneath eloquent pop
(Rhythm Of The Saints is in evidence
as much as the obvious Gracelands),
we catch snatches of motif and melody that remind us of “Walk On The Wild
Side”, “Down Under” and “I Started A Joke” - but mostly we pick up pure
character and musical fluency. They will
be missed.
Word count limited.
Bel Esprit: Longpigs. Gene.
Gomez. Las. Mansun.
Stone Roses. Sum of parts? Nope.
“Creep” cover? Best not, eh.
The Scholars were an epic alt stadium act who may as well
have been called The Copy Editors, and whom we didn’t care for. Strangely, Zurich, the trio that evolved from them are rather excellent
despite ostensibly dealing in the same sound.
A lot of the bombast and bluster has been excised leaving elemental, muscular glory pop with
flightpath vocal lines and dark disco rhythms, along the lines of a Cinemascope
Half Rabbits. Their music might not be
complex or mysterious, but it snags the spirit and skewers the emotions, an
unexpectedly direct and affecting conclusion to a highly enjoyable but not
always entirely convincing event.
