TEN FE/ THE AUREATE ACT/ JOHNNY PAYNE, Tigmus/United
Talent, Jericho, 4/12/15
Johnny Payne is strumming a hollow-bodied guitar whilst wearing
one of those country shirts with breast pockets that look like smiley mouths.
The melancholic rocking tunes are good, and Johnny’s voice is excellent (as
anyone who remembers Deer Chicago will attest), but he is perhaps rather too in
awe of all things American. It’s fine to
write songs about travelling the States or walking the Brooklyn bridge, but
slipping in US terms when there are decent English ones lying around
(tail-lights, gas stations, diner checks) just seems like trying too hard. This is a minor anglophile niggle, though,
and we look forward to catching Johnny soon with his backing band...hopefully
they’ll play “Cilantro Faucet Recess Thumbtacks”.
The Aureate Act’s opening number mixes the proggy poise
of vintage Genesis, the bucolic coolness of Talk Talk, and snatches of King
Crimson’s abstract blow-outs. It is,
frankly, a vast mess, as is the rest of the set, with tempo changes grinding
gears, random guitar notes bubbling up unpredictably like swamp gas, and
rippling piano jarring against hyperactive basslines: perhaps they’ve taken the
advice of some gig-hardened Sun Tzu who counsels “if you enemy can’t work out
what you’re supposed to be playing, and they can’t tell when you’ve done it
wrong”. Despite being a huge
indigestible curate’s omelette, the set leaves us fascinated, and intrigued to
revisit a band with more ideas and references than they seem to be able to
marshal. Perhaps they will win this war,
after all.
After a fifth column in the audience has closed the
curtains that bisect the Jericho, thus forcing us all into a dark space before
the stage, and London’s Ten Fe start their grinning bouncy pop, the night
suddenly has the feeling of an event. Or
possibly a cult recruitment exercise.
Like a never-ending strip-lit airport travelator, their bright songs
just chug on relentlessly, repeating tiny catchy motifs above elementary
basslines. At their best, they are like a krautrock cross between The Stone
Roses and Boney M, at their worst they’re like a squeaky clean mixture of
Flowered Up and Climie Fisher. We
honestly aren’t sure whether a closer shoving the melody from “I’m A Believer”
over bits of “Where The Streets Have No Name” is wonderful or imbecilic, but
the trio has such presence and self-belief it’s hard to argue. Perhaps Sun Tzu told them, “play every venue
like it’s a sold-out stadium”. Sun Tzu,
by the way, was nicking the takings whilst those curtains were closed and
changing his phone number.
