Who Knows what Fievel Lurks in the Hearts of Men?

Common Ground is swiftly becoming Oxford's best small venue, totally up for any sort of performance, friendly, and inviting.  Go there if you've not been.  Go there again if you have been.  

FIEVEL IS GLAUQUE/ BERNICE, Divine Schism, Common Ground, 9/6/24 

Fievel Is Glauque is a strange name. We looked it up, and we’re still not entirely sure what it means. But that’s a fitting for an idiosyncratic act bursting with character. Ostensibly they’re a jazz band, and there are plenty of eloquently fiddly Pat Metheny guitar parts or Joe Zawinul synth lines to bear this out. But those keyboard runs are played on some garishly corny sounds, direct from the FM synthesis era, as if the gig were secretly an opportunity to check all the presets on a Yamaha DX7. For every muso noodle – and the band is nothing if not incredibly accomplished – there’s a big pop melody, with one foot in the baroque eloquence of vintage French beat-chanson, and the other foot on a dry ice swaddled amp in some 1987 stadium gig, and vocalist and founder member Ma Clément’s style is half Cleo Laine, half Jane Wiedlin. They do The Clash’s ‘Somebody Got Murdered’ like Peter Gabriel melded with Tapir!, but their own songs are odder, part no wave bossa nova, part abstract torch song.  By the end of the set half the audience is sat down, studiously following the music’s twisty paths, and the other half is jiggling about like loons. They’re both right. 

But even this is eclipsed, both in terms of quality and headfuckery, by support act Bernice. The Toronto trio play as if they’re trying to trip themselves up, with crystal pure, stately vocal lines clashing against fractal synth tones and restless, intricate – and sometimes bloody silly – rhythms from a Roland HandSonic (a digital percussion device). Occasionally they remind us of the hand-made quirk of Homelife, but they’re more like Suzanne Vega drowned out by someone playing Alex Kidd In Miracle World, or a Cardigans demo lost in a hall or mirrors. Fievel Is Glauque play a track sounding like From Langley Park To Memphis era Prefab Sprout having a crack at the theme tune to Sorry!, but Bernice manage to top that in the style of Burial and Sade rewriting the theme tune to Taxi. Bernice is not a strange name, but they are a band who will fox you, intrigue you, and make you laugh out loud as a digital cuica divebombs a drum n bass ballad, which is far stranger and far more wonderful. 

Diametric Straits

 Sorry, totally forgot to post this last month.  

THE EXACT OPPOSITE/ SECRET RIVALS/ LIFE UNDERGROUND, Jericho, 10/5/24 

In an entertaining set, Life Underground pull us in lots of directions, but all of them turn out to be separate paths up the big glowing mountain named Melodic Rock. So, signature track ‘Sunshine’ is a mixture between Roy Orbison and Steve Harley, two very different acts, but both of which are big on tunes.  Elsewhere we pick up on some 70s Dylan pronouncements, an early Kinks jangle, an airy glide past Fleetwood Mac, and a very small pinch of Bowie pizzazz. Sometimes the sound is clumpy Sunday pub-session rocking, but there’s enough attention to hook and songcraft here to make Life Underground well worth revisiting. 

Their best weapon might be drummer Mike Gore, who plays with a light carefree innocence which owes more to the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, or even skiffle, than it does to anything after 1966. When Gore joins Secret Rivals for their final song, it’s an unexpected joy as he brings a strange country lope to the tune. Prior to this some charmless programmed drums had marred an otherwise strong set, airless and graceless tom fills from an emo karaoke disc undercutting songs that want to fizz and bubble. Secret Rivals Mk II might not have the fight-pop ‘tude of the early incarnation, but Ash Hennessey’s vocal alternates nicely between Lush-style softness and cheeky rants, with Jay Corcoran busting in almost randomly with Scrappy Doo yelps. The Cure-chorus guitar sounds great, as do the rolling basslines from erstwhile Masochist, Vincent Lynch. Next gig, will they be a fourtpiece? 

As soon as Nigel Powell sits behind the drums, the Rivals’ lovable sloppiness is exorcised by clinical precision. Not that The Exact Opposite - Nigel with his old Dive Dive bandmate Jamie Stuart - can’t be fun or lovable, but their streamlined, stripped back mecha-indie is meticulously thought out, and their performance is flawless (one hilarious high-sped lap of the venue in search of a capo notwithstanding). The vocals are agile and striking, the guitar is just on the well-behaved side of angular, and the drums are impeccably controlled, whilst also packing a kick in the ribs when Powell wants to drive a point home. These songs are playful, intense, and yearning, and ae testament to the duo’s long history writing and playing together. Were they as good as we expected? The exact same.