Outstanding In Afield

Here's my second review for this month's Nightshift. The editor reviewed the In A Different Place all-dayer, but as he was one of the organisers and had shifts on the door and so on, I wrote some copy. You'll find the text below interpolated into the review at feb.pdf.

IN A DIFFERENT PLACE, 1512/24 

Whilst one might expect the front bar to host acoustic acts, there’s a surprising array of styles and genres on display throughout the afternoon. However, opening act Aphra Taylor is a textbook example of a guitar-wielding singer-songwriter. This is definitely not to say that her set is generic, though, her voice full of smoke and sweetness, and her delivery enlivened by tiny trills and ornaments that make the performance unique. 

The merch table is surprisingly sparsely utilised during the day, but Sinews are selling a  “horseface T-shirt". Considering their set is like having your face trampled by rabid stampeding stallions, this seems fitting. Their post-hardcore flagellation draws obvious comparisons to Fugazi or Drive Like Jehu, but there’s a sensitive heart beating somewhere within the maelstrom. 

Baby Maker’s songs are like the flayed and brittle skeletons of new wave pop, with bouncy tunes reduced to chugging drum machines, cheeky guitar twangs, and wry vocals, offering hints of Arab Strap’s laconic lofi story-telling. The set is sometimes more intriguing than successful, but the character shines through. 

The most intense set of the day is possibly delivered by Pet Twin, whose music has morphed over the last year from sparse confessional pop to huge theatrical workouts, which seem to be cathartic rituals for Gallagher as much they are spectacles for the audience. A typical track merges thick treacly bass, heart-wrenching vocals, and euphoric keys, so that you’re not sure whether to dance, weep, or collapse in the corner. One or two tracks have slightly messy endings, but really who cares about the landing once you’ve soared in flight? And, just at the point we think things couldn’t get any better, The Bobo comes onstage for the subaquatic ghost rave that is ‘No To Dread’. 

Like Baby Maker, Lord Bug’s songs are sparse and idiosyncratic, more like half-remembered dreams than pop tunes, and like Aphra Taylor, Libby Peet’s vocals lift them to spellbinding new places, her voice warm and jazzy yet introspective and mysterious, and her delivery full of wonderful slurs and rubati, so that she comes off like a strange melding of Amy Winehouse and Lou Barlow. For an act with a track called ‘Dog’s Dinner’ this is a beautiful and balanced set. 

The sound levels for GIGSY are perhaps a little low, but Khloë’s explosive stage energy would be enough for a gig to sound epic if the PA were rolled up newspaper attached to a dictaphone. Her music is a crunchy electronica take on dark-minded 80s synth – EDM meets EBM? - but the melodically aggressive vocal lines are built from club pop fun and burning rage, in equal measure  

Two of the themes running through today’s event are vocalists with wired stage presence, and music with a stoned psych groove. Both of these come together for local favourites Flights Of Helios, whose set is an eclectic melange of post-punk wiriness and expansive folky textures. Chris Beard is an imposing frontman, swaying at the front of the stage, screaming, crooning, cajoling and entreating by turns like a cross between a fundamentalist preacher, a Dickensian villain, and a praying mantis. There are touches of adventurous acts such as Spiritualized or Ultrasound in their set, but as a nod to Christmas, they turn ‘Good King Wenceslas’ into a psych-punk mantra, perfect for anyone whose Christmas dinner is composed solely of brandy butter and brown acid. 

The Subtheory bring back the classic trip hop sound, with low-slung beats, slinky bass,  and hazy late-night vocals (plus, unexpectedly, some excellent restrained guitar solos). Whilst it might be fair to accuse them of cosy 90s revivalism, they do it so incredibly well, and this set has the greatest spaciousness and poise of any on the bill. Cate Debu’s vocals are cool and clear, sitting unhurried at the centre of the chunky grooves, and with James from Pet Twin joining in the singers supply a softly spoken personality to the songs, so that they’re as much Portisheart and they are Portishead (sorry). 

As with Mandrake Handshake at last year’s festival, In A Different Place is headlined by a band who have moved from Oxford to London and found great success. Pecq might play their biggest gigs as part of touring bands for Barry Can’t Swim and Arlo Parks, but they more than own the stage as a trio, coming on to near darkness and launching into some understated tech-pop tunes that might convince you that “crepuscular bangers” is a genre. They take us on a slick, sleek ride through well tooled dreamy electro, but actually it i  the subtlest moments that they truly bewitch, and a hushed bleepy cover of ‘Wichita Linesman’ morphs into one of their own songs in a bubbling pool of squelchy synthtones. 

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. 

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.