Of course, since I wrote this review Truck festrival (or rather, Steventon Events, who run it) has gone bust. I decided to leave the review as it was writtena day or two after the event, rather than go into hysterical eulogies. I'll miss it, though, for all its faults.
Sat & Sun copming very soon.
Yes, there are a lot of words here. Don't read them if you don't weant to, I don't mind. There are plenty of blogs out there that average 10 words a post, go and find them, if you don't like reading. You deserve each other.
TRUCK FESITVAL, Hill Farm, Steventon, 22-4/7/11
FRIDAY
Oh, there’ll be letters. Pints will be mumbled into. The internet may be utilised. Truck has done the unthinkable, and redesigned the festival site. Not only is the main stage in a different place, it’s in a different damned field. And the barn is gone. Everyone loved the barn. Everyone loved the atrocious acoustics, awkward bottleneck entrance and lingering smell of cow faeces. Who wants this new Clash stage, with its high-quality PA and easy access?
Well, we do. We feel that, for the most part, Truck’s new, more spacious layout is a success, and if they have co-opted some of the trappings of the well-heeled boutique festivals they helped to create – posh sit-down dining, stalls selling over-priced nick-nacks made from old Penguin paperbacks – the old, unpretentious, home-made atmosphere still survives. And, yes, you can still buy doughnuts from the vicar and grub from the Round Tablers (quote of the weekend: “I got a lovely burger, but it was weird to buy it from the masons”).
Our weekend starts in the new Clash tent, with Gaggle, a large bunch of vibrantly bedecked young ladies doing a line in big tribal pop chants. It’s something like a school nativity play version of Bow Wow Wow, and is good honest fun. There are about 35 of them, which we suppose might look impressive if we hadn’t just spent 20 minutes as part of a large and twitchy crowd at the Steventon level crossing, as some sort of ovine emergency meltdown caused by sheep on the line a few miles away meant that the barriers had to be kept inexplicably closed.
The Wood stage is a cosy, intimate tent that is sadly a little underused over the weekend, but it’s a the perfect place to watch Water Pageant, a likable folk-pop trio, whose delicate sound might get lost in larger spaces. At another corner of the site, the Last.FM stage is curated on the Friday night by BBC Oxford Introducing, and we’re tempted to say this was the lineup of the weekend. The Braindead Collective swap their free improv racket for an exploration of open-ended pop, and it works beautifully, Chris Beard’s lucid, careening voice sailing high above a mixture of dub touches and Fripp-like effects.
Mr Shaodow follows them admirably, with a crowd pleasingly boisterous set that may have hidden some of his clever lyrics, but highlights his way with an eager audience. Shadow is one of an odd breed of Oxford-connected artists who always get a rave reception at Truck, but who generally play to small, indifferent audiences in the city (cf testpilot, nervous), and with this in mind we can hardly blame Shaodow for keeping things accessible. One question though: are we missing something or is DJ Watchcase the worst hip hop moniker in a fifty mile radius?
You Are Wolf aren’t mentioned in the programme, but we stumble across her making complex loops of vocals and keyboard, to deliver a lilting traditional folk song over the top. She then announces it was actually a Dolly Parton cover! Did we imagine this?
Back at the Wood stage, London’s Non-Classical club have taken over for the evening, and we have the pleasure of being amongst the small attendance for one of the sets of the weekend, from Consortium 5, a recorder quintet. In previous years a recorder only ensemble at Truck might have meant Piney Gir and chums arsing about and playing smugly dire Steely Dan covers, but Consortium 5 is a highly drilled, professional group of musicians, offering us a little Purcell and a lot of contemporary composition. The sonic range is astounding, from the sound of a baroque traffic jam through a Ligeti-like cloud of chirrups to the final number, a mass of breathy percussive bursts and gasping trills, like Thomas the Tank Engine and friends playing Takemitsu. It’s random discoveries like this that make Truck special.
There are lot of people on the Truck bill this year who Used To Be In Bands, which is fine, but there are also a lot Whose Dads Used To Be In Bands: Truck wants to watch that it doesn’t become some sort of indie Cornbury. An example for the prosecution would be Liam Finn, offspring of him out of Crowded House, who is decent enough but pretty dull, going for a wall of sound pop effect, but losing us swiftly.
Perhaps feeling guilty for giving up on Finn so quickly, we decide to give Africa Junction more of a chance, and are amply rewarded for doing so. At first, they sound too studied to make anything from their polite African percussion – Jesus, we left East Oxford for the weekend to get away from this stuff – but as the tempo drops, and the balafon starts to lead the music, it wafts out of the Cabaret tent like a warm sirocco.
Johnny Flynn reminds us happily of childhood TV, and Rolf Harris painting vast wall-sized pictures with house paints. Flynn’s band similarly takes simple, bold strokes and throws them together to create something impressive. There’s nothing here we’ve not heard before, just chunky folky choruses, lively trumpet lines, bluesy guitar licks, and a bit of ‘cello to underpin things, but the whole is rather lovely.
James Surowiecki wrote a book called The Wisdom Of Crowds, claiming that large groups of people are effectively cleverer than individuals. Our problem with this theory has always been that vast crowds of people are generally seen assembled to watch adequate but unexciting things like Coldplay or Michael McIntyre – just how fucking clever can they be? Still, we get a little buzz of pleasure in seeing hundreds of Truckers swaying along to Bellowhead’s outstanding version of “Amsterdam”, squeezing every drop of tawdry voyeurism and tragic celebration from Brel’s composition. In truth, this is the outstanding moment of set that is very good, but doesn’t reach the heights of their 2010 performance. Uncharacteristically, it’s the slower tracks that are more successful this time round, although the wah-wah mandolin does lend a funky edge to the more upbeat songs (images of Starsky & Hutch driving through Cecil Sharp House in a flurry of madrigal manuscripts). Not up to their own high standards, perhaps, but still probably the best festival band on the circuit.
Nipping out to catch some of Spring Offensive’s set turns out to be an excellent decision. We’ve always admired their music, but tonight the Introducing stage witnesses a band coming of age. Not only do they perform with an acidic intensity we’ve never seen before, but new track “52 Miles” takes the melancholic triumphalism of their best songs, but replaces the Youth Movies guitar twiddles with a slow-burning haze that eventually erupts into a bloom of furry beauty. A very good band just got better.
And we follow that be revisiting a good local band whom we had somewhat forgotten. Dive Dive remind us that they can produce bitter little nuggets of pop excellence, and send us off happily into the night, or at least towards the beer tent.
Showing posts with label Braindead Collective The. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Braindead Collective The. Show all posts
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Monday, 27 December 2010
Hiss And Hearse
I know, I know, it's been ages since I posted anything. And you won't get much out of mwe now, either, I'm afraid. I have to unpack my bags from the obligatory family visit, and then go and watch the Only Connect final. I wonder if the other 7 regular viewers will be tuning in...
WHITE NOISE SOUND/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE – Pindrop, Bully, 12/12/10
By all that’s rational and reasonable, The Braindead Collective should an embarrassment. Imagine it, Seb Reynolds, ex-Sexy Breakfast and Evenings keyboard player, being smug enough to convene a loose improvised collective based around whichever of his old scenester chums is around on a given night. Imagine the self-serving tiresomeness, imagine the sickening in-joke winks. But, imagine is all we’re able to do if we want this band to be bad, because in actuality they’re excellent, not only a surprisingly well-controlled unit, but also one that can balance awkward noise with alluring melody better than many bands that have practised twice a week since the fourth form. They start with an eerie, reverby pulse of a piece that sounds like “Astronomy Domine” left out in the rain for six months, and develop a balance between Chris Beard’s chiming, ingenuous vocals and some oscillating keys. Over all this Seb spills reverby sax trills and Jimmy Evil throws in some ornery guitar figures that were left over from Suitable Case For Treatment. The reading from William Burroughs might be somewhat sophomoric, but in other ways the band is highly original, at one point sounding like exotic sonic mould growing on a forgotten Chris Isaak ballad. Irrational, unreasonable, and frankly wonderful.
White Noise Sound’s drone rock owes a fair amount to Spacemen 3, although the unexpected synth chugs also recall Add N To (X). Although the simple music might sound as though it just fell out of bed into a bigger bed, the material is actually carefully thought out, and it’s rare to find a band with three guitarists that can so effortlessly control the texture of a piece, especially when none of them go within a mile of soloing. The emphasis on song structure makes the band come off a little like Black Rebel Spaceship Club, and this is what lets them down a little. Nothing wrong with any of the vocals, but tracks stop because the song has finished , when it sounds like the music is just warming up. The final two pieces are comfortably the best, a pair of longer instrumentals that use the humming guitars as a launchpad for hypnotic repetition, rather than a peg on which to hang three verses. It’s not often you see a band, and wish they’d done half as many tracks in twice as much time, but if this is space rock, it helps to give it some space.
WHITE NOISE SOUND/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE – Pindrop, Bully, 12/12/10
By all that’s rational and reasonable, The Braindead Collective should an embarrassment. Imagine it, Seb Reynolds, ex-Sexy Breakfast and Evenings keyboard player, being smug enough to convene a loose improvised collective based around whichever of his old scenester chums is around on a given night. Imagine the self-serving tiresomeness, imagine the sickening in-joke winks. But, imagine is all we’re able to do if we want this band to be bad, because in actuality they’re excellent, not only a surprisingly well-controlled unit, but also one that can balance awkward noise with alluring melody better than many bands that have practised twice a week since the fourth form. They start with an eerie, reverby pulse of a piece that sounds like “Astronomy Domine” left out in the rain for six months, and develop a balance between Chris Beard’s chiming, ingenuous vocals and some oscillating keys. Over all this Seb spills reverby sax trills and Jimmy Evil throws in some ornery guitar figures that were left over from Suitable Case For Treatment. The reading from William Burroughs might be somewhat sophomoric, but in other ways the band is highly original, at one point sounding like exotic sonic mould growing on a forgotten Chris Isaak ballad. Irrational, unreasonable, and frankly wonderful.
White Noise Sound’s drone rock owes a fair amount to Spacemen 3, although the unexpected synth chugs also recall Add N To (X). Although the simple music might sound as though it just fell out of bed into a bigger bed, the material is actually carefully thought out, and it’s rare to find a band with three guitarists that can so effortlessly control the texture of a piece, especially when none of them go within a mile of soloing. The emphasis on song structure makes the band come off a little like Black Rebel Spaceship Club, and this is what lets them down a little. Nothing wrong with any of the vocals, but tracks stop because the song has finished , when it sounds like the music is just warming up. The final two pieces are comfortably the best, a pair of longer instrumentals that use the humming guitars as a launchpad for hypnotic repetition, rather than a peg on which to hang three verses. It’s not often you see a band, and wish they’d done half as many tracks in twice as much time, but if this is space rock, it helps to give it some space.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Foggy Notion
Mr Clegg, Mr Compo and Ms Batty were unable to attend this gig, I suppose...
MR FOGG/ BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE/ TARIK BESHIR, Pindrop/Kicking Ink, UPP, 17/9/09
When internet promotion for a gig describes it as a “cosmic event” and an “amazing astral vibez show” featuring “projections from the ether” expectations are low – surely we’re either going to be dumped amongst a teeming mass of well-medicated hippies attempting to marry us off to Princess Leyline in a giant naked healing ceremony, or in a hideously knowing Shoreditch preenfest. As it is, despite one preposterous neo-Oakey fringe flapping gratuitously, this turns out to be a friendly evening of approachable music. The ethos is best encapsulated by Brickwork Lizard Tarik Beshir, who plays songs on his oud accompanied by fiddle and qanun, a large plucked dulcimer. Beshir doesn’t boast the ghostly keening tone of great North African singers, but his quiet voice adds to the conversational feel of the set. Where the ambience is uncomplicated, the music is anything but, fragments of melody mutating like fractals, and fiddle lines arcing away gloriously.
Once, when musicians wanted a busman’s holiday, playing outside their normal bands, they’d start covers acts. Now they all choose free improv. Fears that Braindead Collective - featuring members of Guillemots, Keyboard Choir, Joe Allen Band, etc -would be a smug bundle of poorly placed skronks are dashed by their opening salvo, a Godspeed-plays-the-spectralists cluster of wafts and pulses. The set may be improvised, but it’s built on small packets of horn melody and bolstered by groovy basslines and tap-tempo laptop effects, until it ends up resembling the jazzier end of the Ninja Tunes catalogue: The Cinematic Orchestra without the rustle of Rizlas, perhaps, or Mr Scruff through a refracting lens. Surprisingly coherent.
Mr Fogg’s post-Radiohead glitch-pop is the most conventional fare on tonight’s bill, but he makes up for it by squeezing at least three sets’ worth of rock cliché into his performance. Musically it’s all rather good, some well written laptop pop songs performed with the broad strokes of the contemporary “mainstream alternative” (think Four Tet versioned by Muse), and there are some great arrangements, especially the gorgeous trombone interjections, but the effect is scuppered by thirty minutes of desperate rockist posing and manic “good evening Wembley” gurning. We’re the sort of people to find all stadium postures pretty ridiculous, but what looks dumb in Budokan is almost unbearable in a slowly emptying provincial cinema. Go see Mr Fogg, but take a blindfold to enjoy the experience.
MR FOGG/ BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE/ TARIK BESHIR, Pindrop/Kicking Ink, UPP, 17/9/09
When internet promotion for a gig describes it as a “cosmic event” and an “amazing astral vibez show” featuring “projections from the ether” expectations are low – surely we’re either going to be dumped amongst a teeming mass of well-medicated hippies attempting to marry us off to Princess Leyline in a giant naked healing ceremony, or in a hideously knowing Shoreditch preenfest. As it is, despite one preposterous neo-Oakey fringe flapping gratuitously, this turns out to be a friendly evening of approachable music. The ethos is best encapsulated by Brickwork Lizard Tarik Beshir, who plays songs on his oud accompanied by fiddle and qanun, a large plucked dulcimer. Beshir doesn’t boast the ghostly keening tone of great North African singers, but his quiet voice adds to the conversational feel of the set. Where the ambience is uncomplicated, the music is anything but, fragments of melody mutating like fractals, and fiddle lines arcing away gloriously.
Once, when musicians wanted a busman’s holiday, playing outside their normal bands, they’d start covers acts. Now they all choose free improv. Fears that Braindead Collective - featuring members of Guillemots, Keyboard Choir, Joe Allen Band, etc -would be a smug bundle of poorly placed skronks are dashed by their opening salvo, a Godspeed-plays-the-spectralists cluster of wafts and pulses. The set may be improvised, but it’s built on small packets of horn melody and bolstered by groovy basslines and tap-tempo laptop effects, until it ends up resembling the jazzier end of the Ninja Tunes catalogue: The Cinematic Orchestra without the rustle of Rizlas, perhaps, or Mr Scruff through a refracting lens. Surprisingly coherent.
Mr Fogg’s post-Radiohead glitch-pop is the most conventional fare on tonight’s bill, but he makes up for it by squeezing at least three sets’ worth of rock cliché into his performance. Musically it’s all rather good, some well written laptop pop songs performed with the broad strokes of the contemporary “mainstream alternative” (think Four Tet versioned by Muse), and there are some great arrangements, especially the gorgeous trombone interjections, but the effect is scuppered by thirty minutes of desperate rockist posing and manic “good evening Wembley” gurning. We’re the sort of people to find all stadium postures pretty ridiculous, but what looks dumb in Budokan is almost unbearable in a slowly emptying provincial cinema. Go see Mr Fogg, but take a blindfold to enjoy the experience.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
An OFF Night
I've just realised that this is the second time I've reviewed The Braindead Collective, and the second time that Human Leaguer Phil Oakey's fringe has been mentioned. The oddest thing is that one of the Collective is bassist (and one of Oxford's best and most understated musicians, in my non-humble opinion), Phil Oakley. Coincidence, or labyrinthine sub-conscious connection?
THOMAS TRUAX/ ERIC CHENAUX/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE/ LUM COL CON PIX – OFFshoot, Holywell, 6/3/10
OFFshoot is the Oxford Folk Festival fringe. Well, in fringe terms Lum Col Con Pix make Phil Oakey look like Duncan Goodhew, we haven’t the merest conception how they relate to folk music in any form, as they hover styli above record decks, using the natural warp of vinyl to create jagged loops. It’s fascinating that the layered fragments are of a similar brief length, yet have such different sonic qualities, and the set feels intriguingly like battling through a blizzard of cracked Lego blocks.
Improv scamps The Braindead Collective play traditional and well known themes tonight and, the odd synth burr or hushed scuffle aside, sound like a slightly augmented pub song session – which is no bad thing, and the set is gorgeous, especially a plangent take on Mercury Rev’s “Holes”, Chris “Harry Angel” Beard’s delicate voice sounding like Art Garfunkel bounced to us from the surface of the moon.
Toronto’s Eric Chenaux has a warm intimate voice and a neat lutelike guitar plucking technique, but he doesn’t leave a huge impression. His songs are decent, but feel as though the salient points are all missing, like a half-sucked sweet. Pleasant? Definitely. Interesting? Let’s just say, on the fringe.
Despite his famed mechanical instruments, like the product of dusty frontier cybernetics, it’s easy to see a link between Thomas Truax and folk, his songs all have the easy narrative drive of Cash, and the downhome grotesquery of Waits. This is an intermittently successful show by his standards, but the mixture of eloquent storytelling and clunky cabaret wins out. He embodies folk as low-end showbiz, rather than heartfelt cri de coeur: Furry Lewis jamming at a medicine show, not Ewan MacColl rallying the workers. With his joco-futurist noise makers and his twists on rock and blues stylings, Truax makes the whole of the twentieth century into a carny freakshow: no wonder he made that David Lynch tribute album.
THOMAS TRUAX/ ERIC CHENAUX/ THE BRAINDEAD COLLECTIVE/ LUM COL CON PIX – OFFshoot, Holywell, 6/3/10
OFFshoot is the Oxford Folk Festival fringe. Well, in fringe terms Lum Col Con Pix make Phil Oakey look like Duncan Goodhew, we haven’t the merest conception how they relate to folk music in any form, as they hover styli above record decks, using the natural warp of vinyl to create jagged loops. It’s fascinating that the layered fragments are of a similar brief length, yet have such different sonic qualities, and the set feels intriguingly like battling through a blizzard of cracked Lego blocks.
Improv scamps The Braindead Collective play traditional and well known themes tonight and, the odd synth burr or hushed scuffle aside, sound like a slightly augmented pub song session – which is no bad thing, and the set is gorgeous, especially a plangent take on Mercury Rev’s “Holes”, Chris “Harry Angel” Beard’s delicate voice sounding like Art Garfunkel bounced to us from the surface of the moon.
Toronto’s Eric Chenaux has a warm intimate voice and a neat lutelike guitar plucking technique, but he doesn’t leave a huge impression. His songs are decent, but feel as though the salient points are all missing, like a half-sucked sweet. Pleasant? Definitely. Interesting? Let’s just say, on the fringe.
Despite his famed mechanical instruments, like the product of dusty frontier cybernetics, it’s easy to see a link between Thomas Truax and folk, his songs all have the easy narrative drive of Cash, and the downhome grotesquery of Waits. This is an intermittently successful show by his standards, but the mixture of eloquent storytelling and clunky cabaret wins out. He embodies folk as low-end showbiz, rather than heartfelt cri de coeur: Furry Lewis jamming at a medicine show, not Ewan MacColl rallying the workers. With his joco-futurist noise makers and his twists on rock and blues stylings, Truax makes the whole of the twentieth century into a carny freakshow: no wonder he made that David Lynch tribute album.
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