Planet Municipal

My second review from the latest Nutshaft. I'm listening to Rossini's Armida, of which I'd never heard before. I think I know why, it's not essential. Still, Callas, innit?

WARRINGTON-RUNCORN NEW TOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN/ U/ CITIES & MEMORY, Divine Schism, Bully, 19/3/26 

Cities & Memory is more a global field recording fellowship than a musical act, though founder Stuart Fowkes (previously of The Evenings, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element, Listing Ships and other inventive bands) shares his own material from the vast archive. The tagline is “remixing the world one sound at a time”, but this set might surprise casual listeners with its smooth cohesive electronica: yes, the stories behind the sampled elements are fascinating, but the elegantly spangling synths would work in isolation, from the controlled crunch of B12-style techno at one end of the set to the 80s Tangerine Dream sequencer swirls at the other. 

Turns out we’re not the only people who missed U’s presence on the posters for this gig, mistaking their credit for a painterly squiggle in Divine Schism’s house style. Anonymity probably suits them, though, as the shadowy U controls the sonics from the darkness of the crowd, whilst a laptop independently projects some impressive visuals. Musically it’s one long collage of folk tunes, archival documentary discussions, abstract tones, and a few oddities – we certainly don’t expect extracts from 14th-century allegorical poem Piers Plowman at electronica gigs – with similarly smooshed together vintage images giving a Ghost Box vibe. There’s a spectral feel throughout, both from the hauntological vintage TV snippets and the tales of actual paranormal jiggery-pokery, and the set is somewhere between a British take on Irish folk-doomers From The Bogs Of Aughiska and a 70s schools programme broadcast from Borley Rectory. 

Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan continue the visual immersion, treating us to a non-stop barrage of colour-saturated film clips showing that brief period of Modernist urban optimism from the 60s and 70s: brutalist architecture, shiny automated factories, and social projects, many of which are now crumbling, literally or otherwise. Fittingly, the music is all Tomorrow’s World techno, big clunky beats underneath stately and slightly sinister synth lines and arpeggios. At its best the music captures the retro-futurist mystery of Aphex Twin’s ‘On’, or sounds like the Radiophonic Workshop having a crack at EBM, but by the end of a very long set one more slab of mid-paced John Carpenter industrial plodding does become wearing and we feel like we’re stuck on an endless concrete ring road . The austere aesthetic is strong, but we wish that this plan had included a bit more development.  

  

 

 

 

 

 

DScalations

As it's the penultimate issue, I have done two reviews for the May Nightshift, here's the first.

HARESS/ CARAUSIAS ARISE!/ CODIAD Y MÔR, Divine Schism, Common Ground, 9/4/26 

Codiad Y Môr is Ibs, a member of Spaceman & The Spaceband, space apparently being the driving force behind his acoustic guitar pieces. Each delicate instrumental is sparse and simple, referencing British 60s folk and US mountain plucking, but also perhaps the calm stillness of composers like Satie and Mompou. We’d call the spare opening piece the bare skeleton of a John Fahey number, except this makes it sound too sturdy and resilient. Maybe it’s American primitivism’s lymphatic system. Some will find the music too elementary, and a broken string seems to break Ibs’s concentration, but on this quiet, chilly evening the "If John Renbourn studied ikebana” vibe fits perfectly. 

At first Carausias Arise! continues the cold elegance, windswept synth sounding like a diffuse Vangelis piece. But it’s noteworthy that Dafydd Roberts resembles Harry Hill as Geography teacher, because there’s a lofi surrealism to the set. We get the approachable abstraction of 90s ambience à la Pete Namlook, and playfully wibbly improv electronica – a lovely section sounds like pitch-bent babies gurgling – but this is only half the story. One minute Roberts has a patch cable in his mouth, another he’s rubbing a handheld spring reverb device on a piece of slate, but it’s the vocals that are truly mystifying, being tremulous, high-pitched and stately, like a monk swallowing his tongue. When he intones “Take a seed, expose it to the sun” it’s like Scott Walker played by a Gregorian gonk. Two extra-musical moments sum up this set: someone takes photos from the crowd with a Nintendo DS, a self-consciously odd hardware choice, and at the set’s end an eerie drifting tone is drowned out by the venue’s creaky toilet door: absurd, yet slightly sinister. 

Shropshire’s Haress apparently open with ‘Variations on a Toilet Door’, a thicket of bowed cymbals and softly grating guitar tones, but they settle to a more straightforward post-rockers-do-folk structure. This is not to say that they are not excellent, layering malleted drums and entwined guitars over shruti drones – the second track boasts a lovely intricate guitar halfway between English folk dance and gnawa blues, a sort of Moroccan morris. Elsewhere we have folk rock with doom logic, as if we're at Zombie Cropredy. Vocals are added sparingly, and all the stronger for that. The last song’s the live debut of an outstandingly noisy bluster, dropping to a haunted but jaunty coda about “Somerset girls” which sounds like Bellowhead in the underworld. Get us a flagon of spectral scrumpy and a demonic DS charger, we don’t want this unusual evening to end. 

Fraud Focus

 Perhaps not an outstanding review, in journalistic terms, but the gigs was very good. Confession: until the days after the gig I thought the middle band were called Archers.

FRAUDS/ ACHERS/ SINEWS, Divine Schism, Library, 5/9/25 

Their name suggests something taut and wiry, but Sinews’ sound is chunky, stodgy and misshapen, in the best way. Their opening numbers tonight unspool thick ropes of sludgy bass with clotted guitar that could probably mend all east Oxford’s potholes. This would be sufficiently pleasing for a Friday night, but the set extends grunge tentacles in various directions as it develops. A trio of previously unplayed songs adds some light and shade, one niggling us with a nagging high guitar line which shadows the vocal melody, adding a pedigree Mclusky sneer to their armory. 

London’s Achers are, to be honest, far more sinewy in nature, with a clean, almost emo edge to their post-punk songs. Their best tracks are built on – or is that, teeter above? - a lazily spinning bass and drums vortex, swirling, hypnotic and clattering like a bunch of mandalas in a cement mixer. Their post-hardcore/alt-punk sound is less angular than Drive Like Jehu, and more jittery than Slint, and it’s enjoyable, though some more character and a hook or two wouldn’t have gone amiss by the end. 

The instinct to compare guitar and drums duo Frauds with John is strong, but with their noisy intensity and mordant wit they’re really Big John, Big Bad John. They bombard us with serrated riffs and choppy cantering drums, but for every passionate maelstrom there’s a moment of reflection or a light-heartedly accented fill (and if the music can be witty, the band are outright hilarious between numbers, suggesting we embrace each silent interlude of tuning as “a chance to better yourselves”, like passive-aggressive life coaches). The vocals are surprisingly agile, gliding smoothly over the uneven broken ground of the rhythms, and they even drop in one or two semi-raps which sound like they’re left over from a nu metal song. Never mind sinews, this duo is a full heart, a big brain, and a well-booted foot to the backside. More please. 

Axis Of Dawson

Why doesn't hurt Siobhan Fahey if you throw fruit at her?

Banana Armour

NB The word "readers" was inadvertently omitted form the printed version of this review - my error, I fear - so now you can read it in fully idiomatic English for the first time.

RICHARD DAWSON/ ONE LEG ONE EYE, Divine Schism, Cowley Workers Club, 12/6/25  

Anyone who relishes the expansive bleakness of Lankum should immediately seek out Ian Lynch’s side-project One Leg One Eye, a duo focusing on drone, texture, and oppressive sonic fugs. Tonight's excellent set opens with metaphysical observations about the nature of God from sampled Irish voices atop thick, dark tones in a way that recalls the haunting atmospherics of From The Bogs Of Aughiska. Later a cortège-paced folk song is joined by buzzsaw drones and massed organ notes until it sounds like a spectral Luke Kelly guesting on Scott Walker’s Tilt with Charlemagne Palestine on keys. The track – in as much as elements can be extracted from the sonic blanket that overlays us for forty minutes – ends with what might be a bucket of cutlery emptied in a chapel. Both hurdy-gurdy and uillean pipes are played, but anyone expecting Séamus Ennis sprightliness or bouncy jigs will be confused – mind you, with the venue’s mobile disco LEDs twinkling behind the stage giving Phoenix Nights flavours, the whole set feels like a twisted dream. 

If One Leg sketch landscapes with sound, Richard Dawson captures characters with words. His songs are impeccably economical vignettes in the vein of Hemingway stories or the cool illustrations of Joyce’s Dubliners, except they’re almost impossibly English, with opener ‘Polytunnel’ asking “Could you manage a slice of toast/ Or a little bit of soup, my flower?”. Into this celebration of turnip-pulling a tiny line is almost hidden, “It's Karen who was always the green-fingered one”, offering a glimpse into a deep history for the narrator, and so many of tonight’s songs are about hobbyists – allotment diggers, YouTube ufologists, sponsored runners – undertaking tiny activities as if in defiance of a vast, and often unfriendly, world.  

This isn’t a poetry recital, though, and Dawson’s guitar playing is as fascinating as it is adept, swapping between elegant picking and crunchy abstraction like a hybrid of Davey Graham and Gary Lucas. Those who have trouble with his voice would find that the Dawson mannerisms – argue amongst yourselves whether they’re unconscious tics or a stylistic signature – even more pronounced tonight, especially the octave-leaping swoops to strangled falsetto or husky chest voice. But, like Dylan, he swaps melodic fluency for dramatic power, with ‘Jogging’ tonight being especially visceral, somehow a howl of rage and a clarion call for being alive simultaneously. In a way Dawson is Richard Thompson for socially awkward literature students; in another, he’s Chris Wood for Wire readers; but perhaps he’s simply unique. 

Mothers of Inventory

This is my main review for Nightshift this month, but there's actually a tiny uncredited review in there as well.  Think of it as a secret track. I'll post soon. How exciting, eh.

INDEX FOR WORKING MUSIK/ BEDD/ MYSTERY BISCUIT, Divine Schism, FPCC, 6/4/25 

Mystery Biscuit’s cosy kosmische sound melds disco-kraut drums, spacy synths, and subdued indie vocals. ‘Balthasar’ is a thoroughly pleasing chug which inhabits a zone labelled “Pink Floyd funk” but perhaps the best encapsulation of the band is new track ‘Someone Killed My Dog’ - we hear youth culture is helping the police with their enquiries – which is 50% Lou Reed, 40% Hawkwind, and 30% Wooden Shjips...and if you think the maths don’t work, you might not be in the right dimension. 

We steer clear of talking too much about technique, there are vast, dusty swathes of the internet for that sort of thing, where every fourth word is “tone” (and the other three are Stevie, Ray, and Vaughan). But still, we must point out the incredible control of sextet Bedd, playing on a cramped stage through a relatively elementary PA, and yet always sounding beautifully tempered and effortlessly airy. Tonight’s set takes in sweet jangle pop, lofi trip-hop, epic surges of spangly post-shoegaze guitar noise, and even something like Animal Collective without the goofy stoned FX, but the songs are balanced and organic, even when the end feels a hundred miles from where they started. Jamie Hyatt’s vocals come from the unhurried 90s indie school, though there’s enough vulnerability to avoid Britpop smugness, and some of the harmonies bolstering the lead lines are quite gorgeous. The last song even has a keyboard line that recalls Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’, of all things. 

We hear someone describe London’s Index For Working Musik as “dark surf”, which isn’t a bad shot. Whilst they unfortunately don’t sound like a vampiric goth band doing twangy instrumentals (a concept that gives What We Do In The Shadows a new meaning), they do add a Nick Cave austerity to scuzzy hypnotic rock, whilst the prominent cello parts sometimes turn them into a chamber-music Cramps. There’s an apparently unintended, but pretty enjoyable hot mix on said cello, which either has the scraping intensity of John Cale’s viola, or hangs a Jesus & Mary Chain noise curtain in front of the band. In contrast to this, the best pieces are actually the most refined, with warm twinned vocals recalling country laments or even Pentangle. This slightly muddy set might be the one on which they’d like to be judged, but it’s still enticing, and perfect dour entertainment for some of Oxford’s dark serfs.   

Digs Your Own Whole

 This review went over the word count, but the editor kindly kept it all in. 

HOUSE OF ALL/ THE PLAN/ TOP SHORTAGE, Divine Schism, Florence Park Community Centre, 15/3/25 

When we first saw Top Shortage we tentatively labelled them “avant-grunge”, and although the set was spirited, we were equally tentative about calling them “any good”. A lot can happen in just over a year, however, and tonight they are excellently gnarled and weighty, the opening number dark, oppressive and grimy like an abandoned underground carpark, through which the ululating punk-yodel vocals drift like a suspicious wraith: think Metal Box with the dub extracted. At other times they resemble a twisted Francophone Television, and a new song sounds as though someone tried to reconstruct a fragmented Devo tune without looking at the pieces in a round on The Krypton Factor. The band is still sometimes scrappy, but this merely highlights the mocking sneers as they take aim at suburban bigotry. 

Southend’s The Plan have a warmer disposition. Their sprightly twin vocals and twangy little guitar parts make them a stick-man sketch of The B-52s, whilst a cute dinkiness in the keys gives them an air of Pram at their most ramshackle. A tendency towards 2/4 country rhythms is intriguing, but not as much as the lead vocalist’s rectangular Diddley-style guitar, which looks as though it was hewn from some ancient cellar door. Perhaps some of the songs are over too quickly, and the set never quite achieves full momentum, but it is nonetheless chirpy and likable. 

There are two reliable ways to make your post-punk band sound great. Firstly, have two drummers (some practical drawbacks here), and secondly, have Steve Hanley on bass (best of luck with that one). House Of All, a band formed entirely of ex-Fall musicians – plus a stand-in for guitarist Pete Greenway who cannot currently tour – actually have three drummers trading places on two stools, and there are a few old faces beaming happily at the sight of Paul Hanley and Karl Burns bashing away together for the first time since 1984, but even those not versed in Fall history will concede that the band sounds like a twitchy thunder god hot-wiring a juggernaut.  

Unless you’re one of Mark E Smith’s sisters, everyone agrees that the one person justified in making Fall-style music is Martin Bramah, founder member of the group and teenage friend of MES. Although there has been a Stalinist rewriting of history to claim that every element of The Fall was under Smith’s control, it is likely that Bramah was responsible for bringing many of the influences squashed together to birth the Fall sound. We hear a lot of those tonight, from the scuffed garage psych evident in opener ‘Aim Higher’ to the Lovecraftian grotesqueries in the lyrics to ‘Harlequin Duke’. Bramah’s declamatory vocals somewhat resemble those of Smith, but there’s a liturgical air to his gnomic utterances, and by the end the gig feels like one long fractal sermon. In a late-career inspiration burst, House Of All have released 3 albums, plus 2 full-length collections of live tracks and reworkings, in a mere two years. Tonight’s honed set has a strong sonic blueprint, but enough ideas and variations to make each track exciting and unique. Always the same, always different, might we say? No, actually, that sounds stupid... 

I'm sure it's not the intention, but this headline band's name just made me think of peanut butter

I felt more at home with this small gig - I even got to sit on an old sofa for a lot of it, which is certainly nicer than being crushed in the O2.

THE LAST WHOLE EARTH CATALOG/ SUNGLASZ VENDOR/ BIGHANDSANDALLGRISTLY, Divine Schism, Common Ground, 6/2/25 

You know a band will be ungainly with an awkward name like bighandsandallgristly, but at the outset their hesitant tinkly confections with timid violin and quavery vocals barely cohere at all. As the set progresses they shape up like a cross between Dirty Three and Penguin Cafe Orchestra, whilst still resembling very shy baby otters who have found some instruments (all except the drummer who is unusually busy and who brings a Broadcast bounce which is lovely but does tend to drown out the rest of the band). Their best track is like bossa nova in the shape of a lumpily crocheted cardigan, and we find the set ultimately unconvincing whilst being oddly fascinated to see them play again. 

Perhaps bighands... were invited onto the bill by The Last Whole Earth Catalog who were fed up with having the stupidest name within a three-mile radius. They share a low-key eclecticism although TLWEC’s music is far more cogent, often bringing Vanishing Twin vibes with 60s soundtrack keys, sugary boogaloo vocals and crisp, tidy rhythms. Despite it being a grimly cold evening, they warm the room with summery lilo pop that has enough intimacy to feel direct and honest, and enough textural savvy to hold the attention. Occasionally it feels like there are one too many people with one too many ideas on stage, and maybe a jazzoid instrumental sounding like a Kia-Ora-fueled Matt Bianco is a bad call, but overall this is a strong set. 

Bristol’s Sunglasz Vendor have a name that is only mildly infuriating and so let the side down, but are definitely the pick of the night sonically. Again, they bring different styles together, from the most spartan of slowcore minimalism to rasping Sonic Youth noise rock via some gnarly wired Pixies pop but it’s all so much more organic, partly due to the excellent bassist anchoring everything with unflashy lines whilst barely blinking, let alone rocking out. ‘Ice Cream Tubs’ switches gears again at the end of the set, with Cassels-like rant-rock disenchantment, but even this reduces to a strangely arid desert of tiny tones and tics half-way through. We might have had very little idea what was coming next for most of tonight, but with Sunglasz Vendor it was invariably a pleasant  discovery. 

Now I'm A Receiver

I just saw a little clip on YouTube entitled 'David Jason explains where the famous Only Fools And Horses lines came from'. The answer is that John Sullivan wrote them. So I've saved you two minutes if you ever feel tempted to click that link.

HUDSON SCOTT/ APRIL MAGAZINE/ CITIES & MEMORY/ BAT BLOOD PUDDING/ ANDREW HYKEL MEARS, Divine Schism, Fusion Arts, 8/11/24 

Bat Blood Pudding sounds like an unlikely recipe, and the music that Tom Dowse of the excellent Dry Cleaning makes under the name is equally oddly constructed. Half of his set is very good, based on murky prerecorded sounds from a vintage 4-track sprinkled with samples and some surprisingly sweet hushed vocals, the charming dusty grooves coming on like Boards Of Canada remixing Loop Guru. But he also picks out some Bert Jansch/Nick Drake parts on an acoustic, which would be great if they weren’t preposterously over-amplified, tinny and plain ugly. We respect artists with a strong sonic signature exploring a new approach, but sometimes conventional technique exists for a reason. 

Cities & Memory are far lighter on the ear, Stuart Fowkes’s compositions based on global field recordings being big on soft textures, synth pads and mellifluous sequenced melodies, recalling early 90s ambient acts like Global Communication or Pete Namlook; this chimes with the mutating computer-generated projections of bright green never-ending tunnels preceding the set, which resemble a Future Sound Of London video (or a Chernobyl endoscopy). Don’t let these 30-year-old references fool you into expecting something moribund, though, this music is intelligent and engrossing, with fascinating insights into the source material. 

San Franciscan duo April Magazine are more organic, just sparse bass, guitar and vocals, with a warm cloak of low feedback (though this last part may not be intentional, judging by their faces). It’s gorgeously woozy stuff, sounding by turns like Yo La Tengo at their most introspective, the Velvets at their most subtle, and Spacemen 3 at their most stoned (which is saying something). Occasionally they lose focus and stumble, as if someone had tied together the laces of the shoes they’re gazing at, but overall it’s a warm hug of a set. 

As tonight is a launch for Ambient Receiver, a periodical edited by Andrew Hykel Mears, who opens the night with some poetry, it’s no surprise to find his old Youthmovies bandmate Hudson Scott on the bill. Previous recordings dipped from the well of urbane late-80s pop that nourished the erstwhile Blessing Force movement, and were impeccably made but too freeze-dried and knowing to excite. Tonight, he plays trumpet and synths through layers of treatments and effects. There’s a wistful Miles feel to the spacious music – imagine In A Silent Way losing its way and ending up in a deserted misty valley – or perhaps it’s a glitchy, introspective version of Mark Isham’s widescreen soundscapes, with some of Rhys Chatham’s experimental melding of horn and electronics. A quite lovely set: ambience received, gratefully. 

 

This is the Title of the Review

 Below is a review. This is the introduction to the review.

MARY LATTIMORE/ WALT McCLEMENTS/ AFTER THE THOUGHT, Divine Schism, Common Ground, 15/9/24 

Matt from After The Thought’s strumming hand is attacking his guitar strings on ultra-Gedge setting, but the sounds in our ears don’t match the image. Instead of thrashed jangling chords, we get soft snowdrifts of glistening sound, an undulating, endless vista in which to get thoroughly lost for thirty minutes. Like a lot of the best longform drone music, nothing seems to be happening, but take your bearings every five minutes and you’ll find that the sonic landscape has utterly changed: sometimes there are thick low tones like a bank of shruti boxes playing at once, at other times the tones are brighter and more layered, and at one moment it sounds like a barbershop quartet surrounded by bees being pulled into a black hole. The set ends with a melancholic sample of World War I song ‘We’re Here Because We’re Here’, with a tune stolen from ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and the misty effect is pure Gavin Bryars. 

Walt McClements’s accordion produces similarly billowing waves, but the sound is more intense and dynamic, an array of peals highlighting overtones from all those free reeds. He also tends to cycle through stately funereal chords in a clearer way to Matt, as if Yann Tiersen had decided to try to become a one-man Silver Mt Zion. It’s a quite wonderful set, and the highlight comes when the LA-based musician picks up a trumpet to unfurl bold lines over the rich swell of his accordion buttons, which is simultaneously mournful, euphoric, and eerie, like a Badalamenti-Morricone showdown. 

He’s the perfect person to join harpist Mary Latimore on tour, as they both pit elegant delicacy against enveloping textures in their playing. Lattimore takes frequent momentary breaks from her technically impressive string plucking to toy with an effects box in her lap, and garnish the music with 57 varieties of pitch delay. It’s almost as if she’s seeing whether she can derail the beauty of her pieces with unexpected tweaks, and it’s surprisingly how often the music resembles 90s electronica, from the well-dressed arpeggios of New London School Of Electronics, to the wonky wobbles of Cylob. There is a danger that the lavishly applied FX might reduce everything to a small parade of tricks, but each time the set threatens to become samey, there's a new gem displayed, from the limpid loveliness of ‘For Scott Kelly, Returned To Earth’ to a final duet with McClements. Plus she was on Neil Halstead from Slowdive’s virtual pub quiz team, so she’s definitely cooler than anyone reading this. 

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. 

Box for a Pen

There wasn't a January Nightshift, so it seems like forever since I saw this gig.  Luckily, I wrote down what I thought in case I forgot.

PUNCHING SWANS/ SINEWS/ EB, Divine Schism, Library, 7/12/23 

Tonight’s line-up has changed, in more than one way. Having lost two acts from the planned bill, local artist EB has stepped in, but also, EB has metamorphosed something rotten. Gone are the wide-eyed, smiling, pastel beats of a track like ‘La Criox’, and in their place we have excoriating digi-goth noise and lyrics like “Even in death I will not rest”. Between bursts of sonic violence a recording informs us that we’re part of some huge consumer feedback survey which morphs into an evil experiment as the vocal descends from urbane corporate avatar to glitchy screaming imp, which is perturbing, but not as much as EB within spittle-spraying distance of the crowd, howling “you made me hate that song I wrote” repeatedly, like an out of control playground chant over backing that sounds like the devil’s fax playing up. By the time we get to the simulated breakdown and song exploring strangulation revenge fantasies, our memories are gloriously scarred by the experience. 

In other company, Sinews might seem oppressive, but after that psychodrama their neo-hardcore rumble seems positively welcoming even as our ears are left equally battered: imagine a heartfelt hug from someone with an abrasively scratchy sweater and you might capture the balance between friendly warmth and spiky intensity. Fugazi are the reference point that seems most apposite, not because Sinews sound like them, necessarily, but because their music is heavily roiling but with a true sense of beauty within the wasteland, and big, bold lines proving that music doesn’t have to sound like ‘Chelsea Dagger’ to be called anthemic. Tonight they’re launching new single ‘Pony Cure’ which has the thick, scuffed texture of bitumen and old underlay, over which the vocals rasp deliciously, whereas another new tune is a blasted disco trudge, with an excellently rubbery, resilient bass holding it all together. 

Kent’s Punching Swans round off the night with the most approachable set, which is not to say that they aren’t also excellent. Their obscenely tight lopsided rock recalls Mclusky...or perhaps, as the humour is less mordant and more winkingly satirical, we mean Future Of The Left – a line like “A lifetime’s supply of oxygen” leaps from the razor-chopped riffs like the absurd punchline to a gag you didn’t catch, and math-snark sideswipes at third-rate populist culture like ‘Family Misfortunes’, hit the bullseye squarely. The approach is one of cynical weariness, but the playing is supercharged and passionate. 

Father, Son, and Phone-In Host

Here's a review from the latest Nightshift.  It was a good gig, but I fear that the Hallowe'en theme behind the review is a bit hack.

GODCASTER/ LIFTS/ LEE RILEY, Divine Schism, Port Mahon, 31/10/23 

It’s Hallowe’en, and Lee Riley’s guitar lies on its back on the darkened stage. If it resembles a corpse, then like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula projected onto the ceiling above the stage, it is not one that rests easy. Using bows, bludgeons, and just possibly a vibrator, Riley the necromancer invokes clouds of sound that seem to haunt, rather than fill, the room. There are soft misty tones that evaporate when you try to focus on them, there are dense thickets of sonic furze at the bottom end, and, fittingly, the ear-scouring screams of the damned courtesy of a bowed scrap of metal.  

If Hallowe’en is a night for encountering the strange, then Dublin’s Lifts deliver by placing a violin and viola centre stage at the Port. Their opening number pairs these with pounded piano and some repetitive Glassy sax to create a blasted cabaret tune like a zombie Jacques Brel fronting Dirty Three. If none of the rest of the set quite hits that height again, their sawing, soaring crescendos and intricate drum tattoos make them A Chamber Mt. Zion. Only the vocal, which tends towards a ruptured pirate growl, occasionally mars the effect. 

If NYC sextet Godcaster were to make a horror film, it would be the colour-saturated camp of Hammer or Amicus, and judging by the frontman’s stomps and pirouettes, it would be about a rock vocalist possessed by the revenant spirit of a cursed flamenco dancer. These preening theatrics are lightly amusing, but the band don’t need them, the music is easily engrossing enough. The set careens between spiky blasts of noise slashed with awkwardly tricksy guitar, and the breathy, diaphanous ‘Pluto Shoots His Gaze Into The Sun’, which is half hippy campfire meandering, half Broadway ballad. But they’re at their peak when they stretch out over hypnotic Holger Czukay basslines, and the penultimate number powers along like a Kraut reworking of Floyd’s ‘Astronomy Domine’ powered by Dr Frankenstein’s harnessed lightning. It’s a thrilling experience, and we hope there’ll be an even more garish sequel. 

 

Common People

I bought an early Simple Minds album today in the charity shop.  We will find out whether they were not shit before I'd heard of them, as some people claim - NB, it turned out not to be true for Genesis.

OH! COMMUNITY, DIVINE SCHISM, Common Ground, 7/5/23

Divine Schism’s Oh! Community all-dayers have been a regular highlight of Oxford’s post-lockdown music palette. By holding them in community-run spaces like the Common Ground coffee shop and art space they seem to attract people who might not explore classic dingy beer-dungeon venues, and today we see intrigued passers-by decide to step in, as well as some under-18s who can’t access most gigs. But, crucially, the bills have not been tempered or diluted to comfort the casual listener, and today’s line-up spans the delicate and the discordant, above a valley of the absurd.

Sensibly, the day starts with the approachable. Young singer Beth Pirrie has a lovely, unshowy voice and gives an excellent reading of a song by Corinne Bailey Rae (even though she can’t pronounce Corinne Bailey Rae). Green Hands are a pleasingly relaxed threepiece, recalling Wilco or Silver Jews at their least threatening, but The Bobo – with regular collaborator Kid Kin – are more memorable, their ethereal synthpop icily austere whilst being attractively melodic – imagine if the 3 ghosts who visited Scrooge had been the members of A-Ha.  

Suep deliver the sort of scrappy organ-led pep that has been played loud and tipsy in garages since 1963, and often remind us of old-school Truck favourites Fonda 500. They have a synth line that nicks to tune from ‘Love Will Tear us Apart’ which they put above a countryish lope, and some Bow Wow Wow buoyancy with a keyboard that sounds like a disappointed kitten. They merge into Garden Centre, sharing members, but with Max “King of Cats” Levy at the helm, giving them a more foscussed Monkees flavour (plus the best parasite shanty you’ll ever hear). Sinews, although having a hardcore underpinning and a taste for Bleach-era Nirvana, are fitting bedfellows with a surprising ear for a tune despite vocals delivered with the angry belch of a killer whale with a hangover.

The day really belongs to a pair of bands who are part high-concept performance art, part farcical prank...which is what all great pop is, ultimately. Dream Phone toss nasally pitch-shifted Auto-Tune vocals above infectious electro-punk à la Blectum From Blechdom, at times sounding like nightmare pier-end entertainers, Daniel Bedingfield & Orville. Shake Chain are more intense, and as the band begins Kate Mahoney is crawling agonisingly from the middle of the street outside, before delivering the second number from under a rug. When The Fall’s final line-up morphed into Imperial Wax, they had a vocalist conundrum: an MES impersonator would have been crass, but a standard rock singer leached some of the magic. Shake Chain sound like an alternate reality version of the group, where lean wiry post-punk is paired with a Diamanda Goulash of visceral howls and startling sobs.

The only way to follow that is with good tight bands. Ex-Void play sweet-minded college rock with a nod to Throwing Muses, or even Juliana Hatfield. They do a nice sprightly Arthur Russell cover, though they aren’t experts at mid-song gear changes. Holiday Ghosts splice in some classic rock ‘n’ roll chug driven forward by Gedgey hyperstrums, and are frankly excellent. Oh, and those kids we mentioned earlier? They got into the day, and went bananas for Shake Chain; there may be a future for mankind after all.

Cabaret Voltage

 I was very happy with this review, and pleased that the editor was prepared to print it.  Apologies for the over-zealous spacing, I can't fix this when pasting the text in, and don't fancy retyping the whole thing. 

JEFFREY LEWIS & THE VOLTAGE/ MAX BLANSJAAR/ THE DUMPLINGS, Divine Schism, Florence Park Community Centre, 30/9/22

Jeffrey Lewis has a method of accompanying tunes

With a bunch of rhyming couplets and some Powerpoint cartoons,

And with these micro-TEDx talks he gives us the straight dope

On the birth of NY punk acts, and on Star Wars: A New Hope;

Also covered, just to show the breadth of scope that Jeff’s got

Are the second Evil Dead film and the great Fitzgerald, F. Scott.

These poems are instructive and they entertain just fine

Even though there are sometimes far more syllables than can comfortably fit into a single line.

His songs are also playful, and are certainly conducive,

All new wave lofi antifolk with rhymes like Dr Seuss’s.

Lewis’s guitar-playing is neither big nor fancy,

But listen closely and you’ll find it’s sweet, and quite Bert Jansch-y

(Although it must be said he is not wary of the joys

 Of extended abstract passages and grating feedback noise).

The lyrics touch on common themes with open honesty,

Like the pains of breaking up or taking too much LSD.

The backing band is hot, but know not to get in the way

Of the neat melodic songs nor all the witty things they say –

In this respect he’s mirrored by Max Blansjaar, his support,

A young local songwriter who has definitely sought

Some of the best musicians to be found in Oxford city

But they never overshadow any quirky little ditty.

(We also saw The Dumplings whom we’d hardly say were tight 

But those who don’t enjoy it must have hearts of anthracite.)

Some of the show is clownish, and some of it even loonier,

Like a song on getting ghosted borrowed from Ray Parker Jr.

But for all we’re painting Lewis like a wacky old gag-vendor,

The lyrics often turn out to be touching, sad, or tender,

And the jokes end up quite moving, must have been the way he told ‘em -

And walking home through Florence Park we swear we saw Will Oldham.

The Lost Jules

I've spent a lot of July in the Oxford Bringe Preview Comedy Festival, and it's been great.  My favourite shows were Leo Reich, Glenn Moore, Andrew O'Neill, Jess Foreteskew, and Sophie Duker, though the quality was very high overall.  If you're going to the fringe, check one of these shows out.

JULIA-SOPHIE/ MARIA UZOR/ OCTAVAIA FREUD, Divine Schism, MAO, 1/7/22

Those of us who’ve been following Octavia Freud for a few years will have noticed that something has changed. It’s not the slinky, pulsating collision between banging electronica and post-punk introspection, and it sure as hell isn’t Martin Andrews’s hat which we’ve never seen him without, but it’s the foregrounding of humour in the performances. Tonight, Andrews doesn’t precisely tell jokes, but there’s a wry, sly absurdity, which fits into a particularly Northern comedy continuum. Opener “When I Was A Kid” tosses out laconic, waggish non-sequiturs over a cheeky beat like a Frank Sidebottom reworking of “Thou Shalt Always Kill”, and there are moments when a drawling Andrews embodies the spirits of Alan Vega and Ted Chippington at once, especially in set highlight “Tappin”, a coproduction with Adventures In Noise. Of course, it’s not all sardonic aphorisms and knowing winks, there’s “Hot Nights”, a neon disco sweatbounce which sounds like a back-alley twist on an 80s Diana Ross single.  With a knowing wink. 

Maria Uzor has visited Oxford a few times as part of the excellent duo Sink Ya Teeth, bringing a New York* new wave punk funk spirit. This solo set eschews the SYT minimalism and instead we are swept up by euphoric, insistent danc-pop. If the tempo has been upped a little, so has the reference period: gone are the sparse early 80s bass drums, and in their place are gnarlier loops and rhythms, nodding towards Detroit techno, early Aphex cymbal patterns, and even some big old Prodigy stadium breakbeats. However, there is a little clutch of children at this gig, who presumably aren’t au fait with dance music history, and they seem to be getting into it, running about and headbanging, so we conclude, “fuck cross-referencing, let’s dance”. 

Julia-Sophie, previously known as Juju, Jules and many other variants, says she is “getting close to accepting my name”. This seems fitting, as she also looks more relaxed onstage than we’ve ever seen her, and is making the best music of her life. This set is testament to what one can achieve with interesting synth parts, some good ideas, and a hell of a voice. The music is twitchily busy, yet friendly and hook-laden; dense but spacious; melancholy but uplifting. It’s like a Zen koan that you can nod along to. “Telephone”, the last song before an unexpected solo guitar encore, is simple but heart-wrenching, a teen movie credits theme being sucked slowly into the void, and sadly waving goodbye. But, just possibly, with another knowing wink.

*Actually Norwich

Split and Run?

Looks as though I neglected to upload this at the time.  Better late than etc.

MELT BANANA/ SHAKE CHAIN, Divine Schism, The Bully, 3/4/22

Depending on where they’re standing in the venue, the time it takes people to notice Kate Mahony varies. The rest of Shake Chain take to the stage and strike up a buzzing hypnotic rhythm, with no frills or fripperies, but enough focus to keep it interesting, but eventually you spot Mahony, scrunched in a coat, writhing agonisingly slowly through the crowd, some rough beast crawling towards The Bullingdon to be born. And, once they take the stage, looking studiedly bemused throughout the set, Mahony’s vocals are the unfiltered wailings of a neonate, primal howls that, if they are forming words, have sheared the edges off most of them in the journey from the hindbrain to the mic so you’d never know. There’s nothing weak and mewling about the performance, though, and Mahony as Id Vicious overlays the band’s raw and elemental rock mantras, so that it all sounds like The Nightingales haunted by a poltergeist. Amongst this glorious skree there’s a surprisingly groovy number, where a garage gogo beat accompanies the repeated cry “You’re running me over!”, like something from the soundtrack to Kill Bill. If Bill were already dead. And so were everyone else.

In contrast, Melt Banana’s show starts with the minimum of fanfare. The Tokyo duo simply take to the stage, quietly set up in front of a bank of amps the size of a Transit van, and then immediately and efficiently commence pummelling. The constituent parts are straightforward – intense beats triggered by a glowing handheld device that looks like a novelty TV remote, Ichiro Agata’s razorwire guitar parts, and Yasuko Onuki’s high-octane yelping – but over an hour they are mixed, merged and shuffled like the deck of steamboat cardsharp. In fact, despite the relentless hammering, the thing one takes away from this set is just how intricate and lithe the performance is, best evidenced in a quickfire parade of seven Napalm Death-length microsongs. Onuki’s vocals, although clearly influenced by hardcore, have an elasticity that places them nearer to funk or rap, and Agata’s guitar-playing, as well as being phenomenal, is not afraid to pull back from the cascades of noise for some classic rocking: we hear a riff AC/DC would be proud to own, and a chug with which Lemmy would gladly share a bottle. As the closer, ‘Infection Defective’, with its rolling Massive Attack bassline and icy crystal shards of guitar attest, Melt Banana shoot for your head, your heart, and your dancing feet at once. And all of them are killing blows.

Decelerate & Lyle

This was an intriguing one.  I actually liked Slow Down, Molasses less than comes across in the review - they were fine, it all just felt third-hand - I decided to be generous; however, it was only when thinking about the gig that I realised just how much I'd enjoyed Savage Mansion.  Wish I'd bought a CD now...

SLOW DOWN MOLASSES/ SAVAGE MANSION/ DOGMILK, Divine Schism, Florence Park Community Centre, 6/5/22

If you go back and watch the first series of Blackadder, it’s quite surprising how much that defines the show is absent: Baldrick is clever, the filming is lush and expensive, and there are extended riffs on Shakespeare instead of cunning plans. There’s a similar pilot-episode pleasure in seeing a decent band early on – whilst you know they’ll improve, witnessing ideas being tested and explored is a privilege. Dogmilk, featuring ex-members of Slate Hearts and Easter Island Statues, have only played a handful of shows, and are standing in tonight at late notice, and they try on a handful of styles during their short set: grunge via 90s teen soundtracks, garage rock, Cure-style lamenting, uptight punk funk, an even a one-minute country-skank through ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’. Most likely their eclectic sound will settle in the coming months, but wherever they land will be a pleasure if it involves a band this sharp and crisp.

If Dogmilk are crisp, Glasgow’s Savage Mansion are Findus Crispy Pancakes cooked in Crisp ‘n’ Dry by Quentin Crisp on St Crispin’s Day. This performance is gloriously tight, and the music infectious, the band generally following a pretty well-defined route, with solid, harmonically straightforward chugging supporting sprechgesang verses and punchily sung short choruses, putting them next door to the wonderful A House. Like The Nightingales, they know how to squeeze a good riff dry, and like Jonathan Richman, they know how to deliver elegant narrative lyrics without being self-consciously arty. You may find yourself thinking of Dylan, Jeffrey Lewis, and Luke Haines. You may find yourself imagining Wet Leg as arranged by Glenn Tilbrook. And you may ask yourself, how come I never heard of this band before?

Saskatchewan’s Slow Down, Molasses are one of a handful of acts to have released music through tonight’s promoter, Divine Schism. Theirs is a more raucous, thrashy and transatlantic sound than what we’ve heard so far tonight, like goth-psych rockers Darker My Love recreated in the minds of Gnasher and Gnipper. Black-clad, and not afraid of a burning avalanche of guitar noise, the band feel pretty exciting in this bright, cosy community centre – we spot an organisor glancing at a decibel count early on – and they bounce between grubby but honed Mission Of Burma rock and the less aggressive end of hardcore, falling somewhere between the rosters of Matador and Dischord. They know precisely how to make ears ring and heads nod, and if they don’t quite make hearts leap, they’re still welcome visitors 4,000 miles from home.

Thribbed for her Pleasure

When people die we often say they had a good innings.  It's a cricket analogy.  But, by extension, when someone dies at 17, we don't say they had a lacklustre innings.  When a baby does we don't all shout "out for a duck!", do we?  Double standards.

KIRAN LEONARD/ DEAR LAIKA/ AIDEN CANADAY, Divine Schism, Florence Park Community Centre, 6/3/22

Aiden Canaday, who is both opening act and part of the promotion team, explains the otherwise inscrutable ‘Colour of a Lion’ by noting that his songs are mostly about “people who I love who are dead”, making him the sentimental, symbolist  EJ Thribb. Delivered with a tentative, lightly quavering voice over guitar plucks, accordion wheezes or stabs at the venue’s janky old joanna, the songs might often seem undercooked, but deliver unexpected moments of beauty, and we’ll take that over practised consistency any day. All too swiftly, the set is over. So, farewell, then, Aiden. “I left out the chorus, because I don’t know how to play it,” that was your catchphrase.  

Two of Kiran Leonard’s Trespass On Foot band perform as Dear Laika before the main event. Their set enacts a battle between songwriting and production, light and melodic keyboard songs being subjected to the sorts of extreme delay, flutter, and distortion that make William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops sound like smooth lift Muzak. There’s a track that sounds like the wistful ghost of Laurie Anderson on a malfunctioning transistor radio, one that sounds like a cyborg choir singing John Tavener, and one that sounds like Aimee Mann produced by a puckish, shitfaced King Tubby. There are times when you wish that the treatments were less extreme, and times you fear the songs aren’t all strong enough to survive without them, but it’s hard not to love a piece that sounds like ‘Pyramid Song’ with random interventions by Vangelis (puckish and shit-faced, naturally).

The tones are more earthy for Leonard’s band, consisting of a trio of guitars, a cittern, and arco double bass. The opening is wonderful, a chamber Godspeed You Black Emperor! piece with frantically strummed chords coming in fizzing waves, like a spring tide filled with Alka-Seltzer. This is followed by almost whimsically abstract folk, in the vein of The Incredible String Band, before a third track comes in with a vocal line so strong and sinewy it could have been borrowed from sources as diverse as a sixteenth-century Norfolk crabber’s song to a lost Maxïmo Park single. The set is as eclectic as it is enthralling, with Leonard playing unusual but still folky guitar lines like a Vorticist Richard Thompson, and boasting a surprise bass solo that’s all gruff harmonics and seagull laments. By the time the night finishes with an epic, hypnotic track built on a simple bass motif that’s like a recreation of the Fire: Walk With Me pink room music recreated a at west country barndance, all you can do is close your eyes and sway like a loon.  So, farewell then, dignity...

You Gotta Get (Further) Up To Get (Further) Down!

This is not an astonishing review, but I wrote it when I had COVID - actually, I have a strong suspicion I contracted it at this gig - and wasn't feeling very good; that's my excuse and you can't prove otherwise.  Oh, unless you're one of those clever people who can poove COVID is made up, of course, naturally your arguments are incontrovertible.

DEEPER/ HURTLING/ MOOGIEMAN & THE MASOCHISTS, Divine Schism, Jericho, 9/12/21

One of the pleasures of this job is watching poor acts becoming good. But even more so is watching good acts become unexpectedly better. Down the road tonight, Young Knives are touring their fifth, and definitely best, album whereas we’re watching The Masochists. We thought they’d penned their career highlight in ‘Mr Curator’, a mandelbrot-mutating satirical rant about industry “creatives” which is like a Nathan Barley treatment written by Wyndham Lewis and Allen Ginsberg, but they followed it with the astonishing freeze-dried Frankie Knuckles funk of ‘Ghost Driver’. Both these are played tonight, yet are eclipsed by new tracks: ‘Psychotronic Dream’ is a Moorcock acid travelogue squeezed into a krautrock version of 60s garage, and elsewhere some unnervingly intoned monologues ride the minimal thrum of a pop band having a crack at Basic Channel. Frankly, we don't dare guess what they’ll do by December 2022.

We’ve not seen Hurtling before, so can’t comment on their development, but our expectations from the opening song were proven wrong, as a refined shoegazey elegance gave way to some more visceral power trio noise. We’re reminded of Belly – not that Hurtling sound like them, but both bands’ ostensibly elegant arty pop soon exhibits a love of old-fashioned rocking out. Not that this is a problem, mind, as they nod towards the less emotional end of grunge, a la Tad or Mudhoney, or perhaps Sonic Youth in their more straightforward mode.  Perhaps none of the songs will set up home in your head, but the sound is gloriously powerful (as you might imagine when one member plays in My Bloody Valentine’s touring outfit).

Chicago’s Deeper don’t give us time to make assumptions about their sound, they simply pick us up and hurl us into the middle of it. They trade in uptight elastic rock in the manner of Devo, but with all pristine edges frayed and surfaces smeared with oily finger-marks. Their concise rock bulletins have an insouciant urban swagger, like Wire multiplied by the Strokes, and occasionally they go for a more atmospheric yelp and become an amphetramine-addled Cure, but whatever variation they apply, the music remains infectiously taut, and the performance authoritative but joyfully relaxed (and Shiraz Bhatti’s drumming is relentlessly fantastic). Forget this job, watching bands like Deeper is a pleasure for anyone, full stop.

O Positive

Not only was this a fantastic day of music, run by excellent people, the review was an absolute blast to write.

OH, COMMUNITY! FESTIVAL, Florence Park Community Centre, 7/11/21

Oh, yes please! This wonderful all-dayer is perfectly named, being not just a chance to catch some new music, but also an opportunity for the almost forgotten before-times practice of hanging out, chatting about sets, and buying merch from friendly faces. Fittingly, many performers are also present for the other acts, not least half of new duo The Dumplings, who runs the desk for the rest of the day. Their chirpy, punky bulletins are scrappier than Scrappy-Doo on Scrapheap Challenge, and they have a micro-song celebrating Divine Schism founder and local lynchpin Aiden Canaday: O, Captain! my Captain!

Fortitude Valley and Fightmilk are muscularly melodic indie bands providing tuneful oases early and late in the running order, the former giving classic jangle an invigorating shot of grunge-adjacent energy a la The Breeders, whilst the latter spring from the less theatrical end of Britpop, and balance serious lyrics with extra brut wryness between songs. Both have albums mere days old for sale: oh, don’t mind if we do...

Local favourite EB delivers her intriguing unrap in the hugest tinted glasses, like a cross between Su Pollard and Horatio Caine. Musically, though, she’s more a mixture of Peaches and Gwen Stefani, and “Rodeo Queen” manages to revel in the pleasures of urban pop whilst acting as feminist satire on the culture: O, tempora! O, mores! Yay Maria also rides the laptop rhythms, and if there’s sometimes more reverse reverb than songwriting on display, the set has the unpretentious cabaret vibe of early 80s underground New York. We imagine Grace Jones, Keith Haring and a pre-record deal Madonna bopping at the front: oh! you pretty things.

Chunky emo-flecked rockers Junk Whale deliver a strong set, too exciting for one reveller, who smashes the venue’s delightfully old-school mirrorball whilst leaping, fist-aloft, across the dancefloor: O Superman. Things calm down for Alice Hubble, a synth duo (meaning there are two members, but happily more than two synths) who proffer slow, bleakly buzzing but oddly euphoric songs in a style we christen Giorgio Moroser, making one want to become a heartsick cyborg: oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt.

Shake Chain’s set is approximately Birth Trauma: The Musical. Whilst the band plays the sort of taut, psych-fuelled aggression-rock that Fat White Family promised but never quite delivered, performance artist Kate Mahony crawls slowly from underneath the stage, wrapped in a coat, limbs sticking out like the Isle of Man flag gone Cthulhu. She slowly grows into an astonishing howling vortex of bemused rage which is half Chuck Schuldiner from Death, half Moaning Myrtle, and by the end she’s raging behind a Beuysian totem built from the venue’s furniture whilst the band imitates military munitions: oh! what a lovely war.

Only Codex Serafini could follow that, a quintet enacting high-octane ritualistic space jams in black masks and bright pink robes, like the Squid Game guards jamming after hours to exorcise the horrors they’ve witnessed.  This is as close to witchcraft as one can get with a saxophone: oh, oh, oh, it’s magic! And they evidently summoned something impossible from an indescribable dimension (or Amsterdam) in the shape of Personal Trainer, equal parts LCD Soundsystem, Talking Heads, funk revue, art happening, shirts-off hardcore communion, and pep rally. There are abstract passages suddenly coalescing into ultra-tight backing vocals, there’s a bassist on a singer’s shoulders, there’s percussion played standing on a table because...well, frankly, by this point, fuck “because”. Sounds like a horrible mess? O ye of little faith. And then, suddenly, we’re out in the strangely silent suburban streets on a chilly Sunday night, wondering when the next bus is: oh, Christ is that the time?