"Who, then, shall be saved?"
"With God, anything is possible"
"So, you're saying, that God could get camel through the eye of a needle?"
"Err...yes. I suppose"
"So, the analogy is effectively meaningless, then?"
"Well, you see...oh! Look over there! A prodigal son" [Saviour scarpers]
OMNI, Future Perfect, The Cellar, 16/8/18
In the vacation after my first year at university, I was
spinning some drill ‘n’ bass breakbeat abstraction, as my mum walked past my
bedroom door. As the track ended she
said, “That’s really great”. Then, after
a perfectly timed pause during which I was wondering which Squarepusher 12”
she’d most like me to tape for her car, added, “it’s stopped”. Now, as well as this economically ruthless
dismissal of an entire musical corpus proving that my mum could be a pretty
good Nightshift writer, it puts my
next comment into perspective: Omni are really good at endings; they’re
incredibly talented at choosing exactly the right unexpected beat to halt on,
or the most precisely pleasing unexpected chord to slice across a chorus you
thought was being cued up for one more repeat.
They have thought carefully about the optimum clinical summary to each
concise finicky composition, which is fitting as Atlanta’s Omni are a trio -
ageing avant-ravers like me should note this does not make them Omni Trio – who
are dedicated to marrying garage brevity to artful new wave choppiness, twining
angular riffs together to create something spacious yet cohesively taut, like
Gang Of Four or Wire (coincidentally or otherwise they have a single called
“Wire”).
The set is not all cold, scalpelled precision, and
amongst the laundry-folded rhythms and school swot vocals there are lighter
touches that resemble early Young Knives without the panto playfulness, or Devo
without the choreographed absurdity, as well as not one but two tunes
threatening to break into “My Sharona”.
If it’s great when they stop, that’s not because silence is a blessed
relief, but because each stark katana slice of a conclusion makes you realise
what a tight and balanced sounds you’ve experienced for the last two and a half
minutes. Omni might not be the most
revolutionary band you’ll see, but they add to a post-punk non-funk canon of
nervy, nerdy brain rock immaculately.
It’s not too dismissive to observe they made me go home and listen to
Gang Of Four and Wire. Oh yes, and “My Sharona”.
