Justified & Enceinte

Two posts in one day.  But the reviews were written weeks apart.  So not that noteworthy.  Tum ti tum.

MOTHDROP/ GRAVID/ CHALK HORSES/ FIRE HEALER – Gravid, The Jericho, 25/9/21

Tonight’s gig is billed as “an evening of live psych”, but if psych to you this means tie-dye kaftans and songs about pixie hootenannies you’re liable to be going home to your toadstool glade unhappy.  Some define psychedelia as music that takes you to another place – although we might counter that this is what all music does, if it’s any cop.

Where Fire Healer take us is the turn of the 90s, probably watching the opener for Front 242 in their techno-friendly days, with some spacious grooves built on the sort of digidub basslines Youth might have had a Rizla-sticky hand in.  Although each track starts from a similar point, they extend their tendrils into different styles, from rink-dink spy theme organ, to a deformed cousin of “Misirlou” on a distorted mandolin, to a guttering torch song vocal.  It’s easy for this sort of live looping improvisation to be indulgent twaddle, but Fire Healer delivers a warmly charming set.

Chalk Horses are a more refined proposition, consisting of cello, bass, guitar and lush harmonised vocals over electronic backing tracks.  They lightly nod towards the post-club folktronica of Ultramarine, but their elegant chamber-pop sounds more like Waterson:Carthy as produced by White Town.  The first couple of numbers don’t always gel – which might be more to do with backing levels than performance – but they soon find a hypnotic space (or maybe they were always there, and we had to find our way in).  The limpid vocal are quite lovely, but the understated star is the guitar, and our notebook contains references as various as Fripp, Renbourn and highlife maestro Ebo Taylor.

Gig organisors Gravid are the most obviously psychedelic act on tonight, and yet the most straightforward.  Their chugging rock jalopy comes right at us down the centre lane, foglamps blinding and thick smoke belching behind (which might not all be from the exhaust).  It’s basically Hawkwind, but without the wind, and impossible to dislike.  On the downside, the keyboard-player is shockingly underused, and an attempt to slow things down becomes a Slack Sabbath jumble, but they end with an excellently taut Joy Division bulletin (of course, Joy Division were always a psych band, they just took us to Interzone, not the warlock’s pantry).

Techno artist Mothdrop has been DJing all night, but we’re treated to a brief live set in the crowd as the kit onstage is dismantled (neat logistics!).  There’s a crisp post-Detroit efficiency to the rhythms which reminds us of B12, but they build and mutate with lovely sound design, and some ultra-reverbed vocal howls stop the ambience getting too cosy.  As promised, this gig took us many places, but it finally takes us to a chair via the bar, just to get our breath back.