Really happy to say that this review is the first for a recently created website. I don't know whether they will be publishing more reviews, but I hope so, and if they take off I shall try to get some more written. See the original, and the helpful listings at Oxford Gig Guide – A Gig Guide for Oxford.
NO WORRIES IF NOT/ THE PROCESS/ BST, All Will Be Wired, Library, 4/9/26
Ravers of a certain vintage might recall Trance Europe Express, a compilation series that surveyed the electronica sounds of the mid-nineties. BST, a new project from Ian “Tiger Mendoza” De Quadros, feels like bingeing on all of these comps at once, the set perfectly capturing a clutch of styles from the dying days of the twentieth century, sparse and jazzy at the outset, and a maelstrom of drum ‘n’ bass thirty minutes later. In the interim we get some sleek, fleet-footed techno which is like a turbocharged Model 500, a soupcon of post-acid squelch, and, perhaps best of all, some slinky and euphoric neo-disco. BST might not have all the character of a Mendoza gig, and feels like a side-project designed to flex a few underworked production muscles, but the sonic targets are hit squarely and the set is a masterclass in building intensity. Ironic for an act called BST to be turning the clocks back, but we love the journey.
Speaking of new acts from established musicians, The Process is a collaboration between i4M2 and Octavia Freud, although only the latter appears live. At the outset Martin, as Octavia is known when the stage lights are down, promises – or perhaps cautions – that the set is “class war with beats” and as pithy summations go it’s on the equally-redistributed money. Martin rants and slurs his socialist invective like Marx E Smith, but there’s room for lightness too, with a song about the quiet personal revolution of non-commercial handicrafts, and some friendly arguments with the front row. The music is beat-driven and immediate, but thin and crunchy, like electro made from Frazzles. To top it off, the animations and designs projected at the back of the stage are stellar, and contrast nicely with Tom Martin’s more organic, live-treated images for BST.
There’s a wonderful, vicarious pleasure in watching a group of people discover an act you’ve long appreciated, and tonight a packed, sweat-drenched cellar clearly falls head over heels for camp techpop duo No Worries If Not, grabbing hold of choruses and singing them back like they’re part of a deeply shared history. The songs range between cool irony and ridiculous glam comedy like an amalgam of Flo & Joan and Pet Shop Boys with couture by Confidence Man, and the crowd spends almost as much time laughing as dancing: pleasingly they pick up the subtle writerly comedy of ‘Trophy Wife’ as much as the saucy postcard romp of ‘Big Baguette’. The band are dressed in their standard issue sheer tops and wraparound shades, as if the couple on the cover of Sonic Youth’s Goo had become Madonna’s backing dancers, and although they maintain their deadpan veneer, the joy of tonight’s rhapsodic reception rubs off, and tiny bursts of excitement crack the facade. This gig feels pivotal. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the next big band out of Oxford wasn’t sensitive arty indie, but two people singing about silver pants, shagging, and baked goods over sleek dancefloor rhythms?
