HUSKY LOOPS/ LIFE INC./ TARPIT, Future Perfect, The
Cellar, 15/3/18
Tarpit have found the right sounds, we’ll give them that:
thick, building site bass tones somewhere between Bauhaus’s David J and The
Fall’s Steve Hanley, stark authoritative snare cracks, and ruthless windchill
guitar chops with an anaemic vocal wraith hovering occasionally in the
background. Trouble is, beyond a nod to
Joy Division’s bar chart drum pattern dynamics, nothing happens. Tiny semi-motifs occur, hang around a bit,
then stop (or, more frequently, stumble to a shame-faced halt). A Tarpit track is like the background to a
Hanna-Barbera animation, the same sloppy details repeated in desperate need of
something interesting on top of them.
Could someone not hook Tarpit up with some meddling kids?
Life Inc, in contrast, fill every corner of the sound
field, intricate twin guitar licks coalescing around restlessly funky basslines
over which the vocals enact the jazzy yearning of a West End Thom Yorke, much like
a trendy DFA band from 6 years ago coolly riffing on 80s yacht rock and studio
grooves - although at times they’re more like Corduroy doing Simple Minds. It’s easy to be cynical about the way Life
Inc.’s prissy arrangements waft up every crescendo of sensitive grandiosity,
but each lunge and flourish buoys our spirits, and the drumming is, frankly,
superlative. This is perhaps not a band
to set the world aflame (even as they dance into the fire), but they are a
recommended listen.
When rock bands cite a hip-hop influence, it usually
indicates either a rhythm section prone to lumpen stadium simplicity, or a
priapic singer who writes slightly more syllables per bar than Steven Tyler. London Italians Husky Loops have instead
apparently studied the chunky beat collages of Wu-Tang’s RZA: there are literal
homages in the chopped soul loops between tracks, and evbidence in the
tessellating insistence of their elemental, yet fascinating compositions. The best moments – and there are many in
tonight’s set – feature rumbling sparse constructions of riff and fill spiked
by masterfully timed pedal-stamps and skin-tight tempo changes, though they’re
less good when they drop into Fragged Ferdinand angular indie disco; put it
another way, the less they sing, the better they are. Great hip-hop production is about oppressive
space, making the gap between boom and bap weigh a hundred tons. Husky Loops have uncovered this secret, and impressively
reproduced it live. For a band that
literally sounds like a dog’s breakfast, they put on a spotless show.
