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.
Showing posts with label Mr Fogg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mr Fogg. Show all posts
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Friday, 1 January 2010
Postcode Rock
One of many festival reviews that I'll be posting from the archives in the next couple of weeks. Elements from this were used in Nightshift, but the tone of the printed review was rather different. I'm more cynical, essentially. But that's how you like it, you slavering dogs. Oh, happy new year, by the way.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
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