Act One
“I put a seashell to my ear, and
it all comes back,” said Rod McKuen memorably in his poem The Gypsy Camp,
with that beautiful setting by Anita Kerr and the San Sebastien Strings. That
line, which many of us heard first via the immortal ‘Barefoot in the Head’ by the
supremely cool A Man Called Adam, has been in my thoughts recently. This was
partly through hearing ‘Night and Day’ by Everything But The Girl played very
shortly before Jessica Pratt took to the stage at the Barbican on “strange and
unsettling day” after the US election. It sounded so right, and I hope it was
Jessica’s own choice. If not, it was still an inspired selection.
Coincidentally, or not, I had been thinking about
that song, and how it was a huge part of the summer of 1982 for me, just as
Jessica’s Here in the Pitch was this year. But also, how Tracey and Ben,
largely because of that song, performed a handful of numbers with Paul Weller
onstage at the ICA right at the start of 1983, only a few weeks after The Jam’s
last concert. And I am still wondering why I wasn’t there at the ICA. I was, however, there to see Speakers Corner
Quartet a few days before Jessica’s Barbican show. Both of these recent performances
were pretty incredible. Maybe just as incredibly it had been 38 years since I
had seen a live show at the ICA.
Live shows at the ICA used to be quite a thing. In
the 1980s ICA Rock Weeks were often held there, and certainly early ones were
sponsored by Capital Radio. I used to think they were annual events, and that
the first was held at the end of 1980 and the very beginning of 1981, which
featured the dream bill of Orange Juice, Josef K, and Blue Orchids. Oh, for a
time machine. I did, at least, have bootleg cassettes of the OJs and Josef K
from that night. The Orange Juice one always sounded too fast, but maybe they
really did play at that speed. The Josef K set still sounds phenomenal. That’s
the one where they use recorded links between songs, including the classic Dean
Martin and Jerry Lewis-style skit: “Say, Leo, did you take a bath this
morning?” “No. Why? Is there one missing?”
Actually, there was at least one ICA Rock Week
before that, in June 1980, where headliners included Wah! Heat, The Fall, Clock
DVA and A Certain Ratio, which is very much not what Capital Radio was usually
playing. Possibly this series of shows was inspired by the ones Final Solution
promoted in August 1979 at the YMCA just off the Tottenham Court Road. Some of
this I remember. Some of it has been discovered randomly rooting around on the
Internet. For example, Helen McCookerybook has posted on her blog a poster for
ICA Rock Week 5, held in August 1981 (so they were coming thick and fast) where
her Chefs played with Depeche Mode, and other notable appearances were from
Pigbag, Stimulin, and The Decorators. I had no idea these shows had taken
place.
Despite the preposterousness of the ‘rock week’
tag, bills tended to be very varied. One, at the end of 1981 and very beginning
of 1982, had Maximum Joy, Aztec Camera, Haircut 100, 23 Skidoo and Mark
Springer from Rip Rig & Panic among some ‘very-much-not-me’ acts. Another from
the start of 1983 had a ‘Press Gang’ theme, where each night a different
publication hosted a show. The hosts were Time Out, The Face, Collusion, NME,
Black Echoes, City Limits, and Jamming! which had Wah! (this was just
as ‘Story of the Blues’ belatedly took off), Everything But the Girl, King,
plus DJs Gary Crowley, Pete Barrett, and Paolo Hewitt.
A year later the theme was ‘Big Brother is
Watching You.’ One night was a Kitchenware special, and this was the first time
I went to a live event at the ICA. I was there for Hurrah! who were on amazing form
and were everything I dreamed they could be. The night before was the infamous
Einstürzende Neubauten and friends piece of performance art, which I was
reminded of recently while reading the remarkable and deeply unsettling Brian
by Jeremy Cooper, which is a book I recommend very highly, even if it does get
a little too close for comfort at times.
Another year on, and The Jesus and Mary Chain were
at the ICA, with Bobby standing up playing his minimal drum kit, which was
partly inspired by Fire Engines’ Russell Burn appearing on TV playing ‘Big Gold
Dream’, and the similarly Fire Engines-inspired idea of doing a 15-minute set
was just perfect. I should also mention the influence of Keith Levene standing
up in his lab coat playing drums for ‘Flowers of Romance’ on Top of the Pops.
The Mary Chain that night were magnificent, and quite probably never as good
again. It really is funny what comes back to you: walking into the Speakers Corner
Quartet show I had a sudden flashback to Lawrence at the Mary Chain show
getting excited when the Pale Fountains’ ‘Jean’s Not Happening’ was played over
the PA in the bar/café area.
Bobby was back at the ICA in July 1986, the day of
a Royal Wedding in the vicinity of the venue, with Primal Scream at the peak of
their imperial phase. This was part of the ‘Cool in the Spool’ NME-hosted
week. The Primals looked (in Fire Engines / Subway Sect-inspired red jumpers)
and sounded really special, creating a celestial wall of sound. In a way, it
was a peak, the end of something, and it would be many years before I would
return to the ICA for a live event.
I should add I went there many times after that to
see films, meet friends, and go to exhibitions. Actually, and this is something
I had nearly forgotten, the first time I went to the Institute of Contemporary
Art in John Nash House (an amusing name for family reasons) on The Mall was for
an exhibition on The Who in August 1978. I went with a couple of slightly older
friends, who were more into their classic rock than I was. Sadly, I can’t claim
that the exhibition marked a Damascene moment for me on the road to modernism. It
was more of a long hair and flares occasion if I remember rightly.
The Who really didn’t mean much to me back then. A
year later, sure, but not then. This was before All Mod Cons and The
Jam’s cover of ‘So Sad About Us.’ I think I only knew the mod-era Who via ‘My
Generation’ from my brother’s Stardust soundtrack compilation and loved
that. Generally, though, I associated The Who with ‘Squeeze Box’ and ‘Pinball
Wizard’ and them playing at Charlton’s football ground where the joke was they
were so loud you could hear them out where I lived. Ironically, a younger
brother of The Who’s manager Bill Curbishley would later coach Charlton pretty
successfully.
Coincidentally or not, I recently stumbled across a
long post by mod legend Irish Jack about his part in
staging that “by fans, for fans” Who exhibition, which made me wish I had been
paying more attention. Oh well, it just seemed too much an older person’s event,
while I was 14 and into things like The Jam, XTC, Rich Kids, The Lurkers,
Buzzcocks, and a lot of the things on small labels John Peel was playing. My
abiding memory of the event (and I suspect we went on the opening day) is of
tiring of looking at photos of The Who in the 1970s so turning away and finding
myself face-to-face with Pete Townsend who was coming up the stairs behind me.
He looked perplexed, even alarmed, at my indifference, but I was simply too
shocked to respond.
And then, on our way out, we saw Keith Moon
holding court in the foyer area, and I thought he looked such a mess. A few
weeks later though he was dead. What were they then, the members of The Who? In
their early 30s, I guess. Also, in Irish Jack’s article there is a mention of
Peter Meaden donating a copy of ‘I’m The Face’ for the exhibition. Again,
sadly, he died around then, just as the exhibition started. There’s some
strange symbolism there. In 1978 I didn’t have a clue who he was. I didn’t even
really know what mods were back then. Is there a case for heritage rock inc. beginning
there at the ICA? “In the past there was always the future, where did that go?”
Act Two
It is a tricky situation. I should mention that, living
in the present, I could be content digging (for) my Northern Soul, old punk and
what came after, jazz, dub, MPB, beat noise, choral and chamber music,
whatever, but at the same time a high proportion of what I listen to is new, or
at least new to me. And yet I feel a certain awkwardness writing about new
music. I am not sure why. I suspect it is partly an age thing. It may be fear
of seeming to be a dilettante, dabbler, charlatan, or imposter.
And, in a way, it is nice not to be emotionally
involved with new music, simply hearing things via NTS, Bandcamp, Spotify,
whatever, where certain sounds emerge from the fog unexpectedly. One example of
this is Speakers Corner Quartet’s Further Out Than The Edge set from
last year, which became incredibly important to me. It was a Spotify recommendation,
oddly, so let’s occasionally bless the algorithms. The music sounded great, and
I liked their use of a variety of guest vocalists taking turns, as the group
switch styles to accommodate. It is a tradition that suggests Smith &
Mighty / More Rockers and 4hero of yore and comes across as a celebration of
diverse areas of activity thriving in modern music.
The record opens with Coby Sey channelling his
inner Robert Wyatt for ‘On Grounds,’ a thing of incredible beauty. I have a lot
of time for Coby: his shows on NTS are a total joy, full of unexpected things,
and tracks from his Conduit set really connected, his ‘Onus’ being particularly
close to my heart at a tough time, but I wasn’t prepared for the beauty he adds
to ‘On Grounds’. And then there is a devastating display of righteous and
resigned anger, ‘Geronimo Blues’ with the biting words of Kae Tempest, deservedly
an award winner, and sadly very timely.
Live at the ICA, though, Speakers Corner Quartet
were something completely different, unless you count the LP’s closing track ‘Karainagar’
with Mica Levi. Billed as ‘Out There In Here’ it featured the use of robotic
technology, but no guest vocalists, and indeed no vocals at all. The show
opened with an hour-long extended meditative groove, which at times shared
common ground with The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined by Laura Cannell,
something new I have been playing a hell of a lot of late.
But, at other times, out of the hall’s darkness
came cavernous drums, louder than thunder, suggesting African Head Charge (who,
ironically, I had seen shortly before incongruously playing one late afternoon
in the courtyard of a Lewisham pub, in the area where SCQ rehearse,
coincidentally or not), while the sound whirled in directions that suggested
but not necessarily sounded anything like 23 Skidoo, Pharoah Sanders and Alice
Coltrane on Impulse! and classical Indian spiritual sounds. There were even moments
when I found myself thinking they might break into ‘Flowers of Romance,’ or Cozy
Powell’s ‘Dance with the Devil,’ but that was probably just me.
It was so wonderful, especially the elements of
improvisation and interaction with the new technology. A mad Professor
Branestawm-style contraption dominated the dancefloor, and generated all sorts
of sounds and, together with a cluster of boffins behind the mixing desk, the
hall’s surround sound, and the band in the dark onstage, created a stunning
spectacle. The Quartet at the end were enthusiastic about the possibilities of using
(rather than being used by) artificial intelligence, and despite the scare
stories of today it is easy to forget AI seemed completely cool when 30-odd years
ago Warp adopted that term for a series of recordings by Autechre, Black Dog,
etc.
As with the old adage about London buses, I was
back at the ICA a few weeks after the Speakers Corner Quartet show for one with
Loraine James plus Nídia & Valentina on the same bill, which in my modern world
is a pairing as good as Orange Juice and Josef K (coincidentally, or not,
Loraine was wearing a t-shirt with ‘Onwards and Upwards’ on the back), and in
reality as wonderful as I have long imagined those groups had been at the ICA,
or how about The Clash with Subway Sect there in December 1976?
I was really excited and nervous about seeing
Loraine live. In recent years she has released three classic full-length sets
on Hyperdub, the label run by Kode9 which emerged from the dubstep community
and made waves with its Burial releases, but for me I love the label for its
releases by Ikonika, Cooly G, and now Loraine James. The central part of that
trilogy by Loraine, Reflection, was incredibly important for me when it
came out in the summer of 2021. It just connected in a special way.
Sometimes on record Loraine sings, in confessional
mode. At other times, rather like Speakers Corner Quartet, she makes use of a
variety of vocalists in differing styles: honeyed R&B, drill, trap, whatever,
through to ultra-pop or hyperpop. Her productions can go pretty deep, with themes
of identity and self-worth. For me, she has created her own space and sound in
the music world, and is a sort of realisation of possibilities suggested by
records like Plaid’s Not For Threes and Leila’s Like Weather, at
the end of the last century when people dreamed of joining the dots between Autechre
and Missy E. / Timbaland.
Importantly, Loraine’s monthly NTS shows are
always a delight as you never know what will feature, and that is reflected in
her music with her determination to keep moving, keep people guessing. What
direction will she take? That’s what made the prospect of seeing her perform
live, and not in a club setting, so exciting. I can recall an Ali Smith quote,
where she was sort of defending her abstract writing style, and she admits she
couldn’t write a conventional story-led novel if she tried, and Loraine’s work
is a little like that. Everything she does comes out wonderfully slightly awry,
and I like that.
Live, for the first half of her set, she summoned
up a fearsome barrage of melody and beats that made my chest pound and my
senses swim in delight, as she stood centre stage, unassumingly imperious, if
that makes sense, concentrating on her live kit, her box of tricks, creating
these waves of incredible force and beauty. Gentle confrontation, indeed, to
steal her most recent and best yet Hyperdub title.
For the second half of the set, she was joined by
a young drummer, whose presence and jazz style, for this (literally) poor old
soul, seemed eerily reminiscent of Damien Mahoney 40-years before on the same
stage breaking up the melodies of Hurrah! And so, he had the role of countering
Lorraine’s sounds, these gorgeous swells of sweet celestial harmonies which she
was coaxing out of her kit and which filled up our senses with improbable
beauty, provoking a very emotional response from the audience. Loraine’s
performance was truly special, and that’s no mean achievement as Nídia &
Valentina were a very tough act to follow.
The percussionist supreme Valentina Magaletti has
been at the core of three records which have found a special place in my heart
over the past 18-months or so. Each of these releases I have heard as a result
of nudges from Heavenly’s Jeff Barrett, not coincidentally, for which I will be
eternally grateful. What can I say about the Nídia & Valentina one, apart
from how much I love it? I suspect Joseph
Francis at Resident Advisor put it far better
than I am able to. He clearly knows so much more about these things. Me, I know
next-to-nothing about Joseph, but I have found out he’s been hosting some
very cool shows on the Italian station Radio Raheem.
Valentina is an inveterate collaborator, and a
pretty special one. Nídia is a producer from Portugal whose recent records are
amazing, especially 95 Mindjeres with its simple synth melodies, like
something out of raw bleep tracks or early hardcore uproar, married to a
cavalcade of clattering beats which have roots all over the world, and are
spectacularly anti-rigidity and totally life-affirming albeit discombobulating.
Together on their Estradas record Nídia
& Valentina make an incredibly infectious noise. Live at the ICA they were
amazing. Nídia at the controls in her Nirvana t-shirt, provides the melodies
and ballast and beats, the bedrock of their sound, while Valentina freed from
her drum stool is like someone possessed. She creates a percussion frenzy and
is herself non-stop motion, bouncing on her heels, like an indefatigable boxer,
pounding or jabbing away at the timpani, kettle drums, whatever, and all her cymbals
and cow bells, the marimba or vibraphone: don’t ask me to remember the
technical stuff, I was too busy keeping up with her. Oddly, I think I was
standing in a similar space at the front of the ICA stage to where I saw Bobby
Gillespie nearly 44 years before standing up and attacking his minimalistic
drum kit. A sweet memory but nothing compared to ‘the tumbling psychic joy of
now.’
And The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now just
happens to be the title of the second record involving Valentina which I fell
in love with. This was a collaboration between the Holy Tongue project she’s part
of and the producer Shackleton. Initially, Holy Tongue was a collaboration between
Valentina and the producer Al Wootton. I can say, with some relief, that at
least I know about Al and his roots in dubstep and subsequent journey to some strange
places which I sense may include Muslimgauze, Suns of Arqa, and maybe that
Industrial / United Dairies axis, plus perhaps the stillness of ECM or music of
the ancients. I don’t know.
It is with that ‘what came after’ that dubstep really
got interesting, like with Peverelist’s Livity Sound label, which is where I
first came across Al Wootton and his productions. Peverelist, as a key part of
the Bristol dubstep community, ran the Punch Drunk label and his own ‘Roll With
The Punches’ is a complete classic, and rightly spoken about worldwide with
reverence. Moving beyond that scene, he started Livity Sound in the early 2010s,
though it would be many years down the line before I was aware of what the
label was doing. Livity Sound releases come with distinctive artwork by Tess
Redburn, which is a very cool look aesthetically, even if it gives nothing away
about the sound and the distance travelled.
I think I first came to the label via the work of
Forest Drive West, of whom I am a big admirer. And it is the Livity output at
the dubbier (wasn’t Livity a Prince Far I album for PRE?), downbeat, percussive
end of things that really appeals. One record that really caught my imagination
was Al Wootton’s 2020 Snake Dance EP, with its distantly dubbed echoes of
Photek’s ‘Hidden Camera’ and labelmates Source Direct, that sort of thing, or
so it seemed to my cloth ears.
It genuinely makes my head spin the number of
releases Al Wootton has been involved with in the past few years, most of which
he has put out himself. I would not even begin to claim I have heard them all,
but his Forest Trilogy collection is exceptional, as is his recent Albacete
Knife EP. Also very highly recommended is his new full-length set, Lifted
from the Earth, for the Berceuse Heroique cassette series which is poetically
described on Bandcamp as “a screwed navigation of mood pieces and hypnotic club
inversions primed for the low lights.” That works for me. I have to admit I am
more of a fan of Al’s cuts that are dub-inspired itchy-ambient works like this rather
than tracks where he steps on the accelerator and produces something harsher
and harder like on his We Have Come to Banish the Darkness set, which
has a title that makes me think of the Wild Swans, coincidentally or not.
But then, that release from last year was an act
of protest, as his Bandcamp page makes clear: “The record is a product of
dystopic times, taut with energy and restrained violence, yet never oppressive
or nihilistic. The theme is one of unity, liberation, and resistance to a
darkening world, against the rising tide of fascism, hypercapitalism, and right-wing
politics. Yet there remains a constant hope and light, most evident in the
downtempo roller ‘Devarim’ and the closing bars of ‘May Your Angels Of Light
Accept Him’.” Al’s titles alone give a
strong indication that he is not, and never will be, part of the crowd.
Al Wootton and Valentina Magaletti’s original
concept for Holy Tongue was to conduct explorations in live dub improvisations,
inspired by early-On-U Sound / 23 Skidoo / Liquid Liquid, etc., which they did over
the course of a series of eponymous EPs and the stunning LP Deliverance and
Spiritual Warfare: all of which I totally missed at the time, though it has
been fun catching up. Along the way Holy Tongue gradually expanded their sound
and personnel, with contributors including Ben Vince on sax (who also plays on
Coby Sey’s Conduit, notably the incredible ‘Response’) and on keyboards Steve
Beresford, providing a link to the past, and that Slits / The Pop Group world. Plus,
Valentina’s close compadre Zongamin (or Susumu Mukai) joined in on bass and
more, live and on record.
And now we have Holy Tongue meet Shackleton which
is something very special. As I understand it, Holy Tongue recorded a set of
tracks which they passed to Shackleton so that he could work some serious magic
on them in his Berlin studio, with echoes of how Adrian Sherwood and Creation
Rebel worked in days of old. It is a dream match, though I have to confess that
until this record and the concurrent release of his collaboration with Six
Organs of Admittance I had lost track of what Shackleton was up to.
Emma Warren’s Dance Your Way Home is probably
the best music-related book of recent times, and my favourite section in it is
the dubstep-themed one. In that chapter there is a great quote about the early
club nights from the photographer Georgina Cook, whose book Drumz of the
South documents the scene’s heyday: “You’d have people like (producers)
Shackleton and Appleblim who would be at the front, first in as soon as the
doors opened. And they’d have pretty wacky moves as well, loads of freedom.”
In the great tradition of artists emerging from a
particular scene, like Subway Sect from the earliest punk gigs, Shackleton and
Appleblim would go on to make some of the era’s best music for their own Skull
Disco imprint. The Soundboy Punishments Skull Disco collection remains
an exceptional document of that time. Then for a while there seemed no stopping
Shackleton, as he used his dubstep base to take a great leap into the unknown.
The Three EPs collection for Perlon, the fabric mix CD (aptly in a Basic
Channel / Chain Reaction metal tin), the collaboration with Pinch for Honest
Jons, and the Music for the Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organs pairing
revealed an artist who was way ahead of the pack. Then somehow, I lost track of
what he was up to, which I suspect says more about me than him. Thankfully,
Shackleton swam back into focus with his Holy Tongue collaboration.
And the first of those three records featuring
Valentina Magaletti was the V/Z project from last year which was her and Zongamin.
The Bandcamp page for their Suono Assente LP has these lovely words
about the record: “Dub postcards, east London boats, reflections in the eye of
a cat, swallowing your tarot card, spitting echo from calming substances,
yellow paint on our shut down local brunch spot, post-punk golden rules,
shaking metal memories in a glass jar.” Is it just me, or does that have a kind
of Michael Bracewell feel to it, with echoes of his recent Souvenir and Unfinished
Business?
The V/Z record is a more structured though tantalisingly
short set, with an emphasis more on ‘songs.’ Coby Sey puts in an appearance on
the superb and gloriously unsettling ‘Candles’, which highlights Valentina’s
controlled drumming. A new LP will any day now be released, and I feel
ridiculously excited. For now we have their debut Suono Assente on which
V/Z really sound like nothing else: for while there are strong suggestions of
Factory minor characters, when you check back, they never sounded this good. And,
momentarily, at the end of ‘Plants No Virtues,’ there is a lovely bit of Wah!
Heat ‘Don’t Step on the Cracks’ guitar, which sort of brings us back to where
we came in with those very early ICA Rock Weeks.
Act Three
In the past The Black Dog sounded like the future,
but where did they go? I don’t know. I guess I lost track of them too somewhere
along the line. But back in 1993 The Black Dog were massively important for me.
I guess, looking back, it was an area of music that Ultramarine opened up for
me with their Every Man and Woman is a Star. Then came that whole Warp Artificial
Intelligence thing and the idea of immersing yourself in electronic music at
home rather than on dancefloors. The (Bytes) collection of Black Dog
Productions, Autechre’s debut Incunabula, and the allied Sabresonic by
the Sabres of Paradise still seem proof that something special was happening
with Warp at that time.
Beyond (Bytes) there was The Black Dog’s
LP, Temple of Transparent Balls, in 1993, and then Spanners a
couple of years later, both of which were so good, and The Black Dog seemed
pretty central to so much inspirational music from that time, quite probably my
favourite period for enjoying music. Then the outfit split, with Ed Handley and
Andy Turner going off to record as Plaid, and Ken Downie continuing as The
Black Dog. I kind of kept up with what Plaid were doing for a while, with the reinvention
of pop on Not For Threes and so on, but I lost track of The Black Dog
after the gorgeous Warp release Music for Adverts (and Films) in 1996,
though I have a sense of shadowy, esoteric activity and a more Militant stance,
not unlike Al Wootton at the moment, I guess.
So, I was amazed to see the ICA was advertising an
event in December 2024 headlined by The Black Dog, which threw me completely. I
confess I had no idea The Black Dog was still active, but it seems that over
the past 20-odd years the entity (Ken, it seems, with Richard and Martin Dust,
for a long time now) has recorded prolifically and maintains a very active
Internet presence. Rather wonderfully their merchandise comes with a clenched
fist logo, and a variety of slogans along the lines of ‘Brutal Ambience’, which
gives off a kind of die-hard Northern Soul ‘keep the faith’ aura. Indeed, in
recent photos The Black Dog look like they could be regulars at a Sheffield
Northern Soul event. Maybe they are. Coincidentally or not, they have a series
of tracks called ‘Northern Electronic Soul.’ Funnily enough, I don’t ever
remember seeing photos of the original incarnation of The Black Dog.
Also, coincidentally, or not, one recent release
by the outfit is the Sleep Deprivation set which opens with the titles ‘The
Slow Cancellation of the Future’ and ‘The Future is Now Passed.’ If I remember rightly an early Black Dog title
was ‘Ambience With Bite,’ which seems more than ever to fit their current sound
extremely well. Trying not to be overwhelmed by thoughts of what I have missed,
I have begun working back from the most recent releases and have been
incredibly impressed by the exceptionally high quality of what is still very
much ‘techno for home listening.’ There is some truly beautiful music there. And
I really admire their self-sufficiency, the determination to do their own
thing.
As an example of a higher power at work, The Black
Dog are advertised with MOMO on same ICA bill, which is perfect for those of us
that love improbable programming. MOMO (or Marcelo Frota, if you prefer) is an
exceptionally gifted Brazilian (though much travelled) composer and performer
who has released some of this year’s best music. Fortuitously, I first came
across him supporting Joyce Moreno at the Jazz Café in early September this
year.
Joyce was poorly that night, but struggled through
a great set culminating in a particularly
emotional rendition of ‘Aldeia de Ogum’, her great work
of art. MOMO opening the show seemed humble and unassuming, perched on a chair,
alone, hunched over his guitar, but his repertoire was a revelation, and his
set was packed with incredible, catchy songs. Yes, he is in the tradition of
the great Brazilian singer / songwriters, but the almost childlike simplicity
and infectiousness of his compositions made me think of Jonathan Richman somehow.
Gradually, more of MOMO’s new recordings were
revealed over the coming weeks, initially with what I recognised as the
highlight of his set, ‘Jão,’ which I became rather obsessed with, and from the
smiles at subsequent live performances I suspect I was far from alone in that.
It is such a special song. Oddly, it sort of reminds me of Robert Wyatt’s
‘Heaps of Sheeps’ (which is strange as that song always makes me think of
Blondie’s ‘Union City Blue’ or is it ‘Dreaming’?), or the bliss of Robert
singing Alfie’s words on Bertrand Burgalat’s ‘This Summer Night’? I don’t know.
That probably is not worth following-up. I just know ‘Jão’ is so joyous.
Gira, MOMO’s new
LP(though sadly not on CD) on Batov records, is his first to be recorded in the
UK, and it is exceptional. Recorded with some of our foremost jazz musicians,
in I believe improvised sessions, it contains a few songs that have rapidly
become favourites from live performances (notably at the Rough Trade shop in
Talbot Street, the singer perched on the counter, with his young daughter
beside him for much of the set, leading the applause charmingly), like the
title track and ‘Pára’. The latter puts the spotlight on Jessica Lauren’s keyboards,
and it is rather frightening to note that it’s 30 years since Soul Jazz released
her Siren Song CD, back when the UK was enjoying an earlier jazz
renaissance.
A good proportion of MOMO’s Gira is made up
of instrumentals, which often go way beyond purely Brazilian stylings and, coincidentally
or not, his label mate Mulatu Astatke’s work is suggested from time to time.
The wider African and Carnival influences at work, especially on the
instrumentals, also make me think of Weekend’s La Varieté from 1982
(something reinforced by the very Weekend-ish titles ‘A Walk in the Park’ and
‘Summer Interlude’), back when a generation of young romantics was falling for new
variations on jazz and torch songs and bossa nova for the first time, a love affair
that for some of us would never die, and sort of where we started.
So, absurdly, back to the ICA for the third time
in six weeks, and it was another remarkable night. There, however, was one tiny
glitch: I got MOMO confused with momo. Easily done. So, instead of an uppercase
Brazilian singer opening the show, proceedings started with a lowercase London
DJ, who filled their 60-minutes with an astonishing set of genre-defying sounds.
I have no idea what she played, and neither did Shazam. But I loved every
second of it: from the early tracks of ambient oddness to the later mutant bass
& beats tracks that sent some listeners’ limbs haywire, as spectacularly illustrated
by a young man dancing like Ian Curtis had taken control of his nervous system.
Most us made do with an array of involuntary head nodding. It was quite a night
for head nodding.
Another highlight of the show was the ‘audio
visual’ set by Voice Artist. This was a new name to me, but apparently this is
an act that has acquired a cult following since the release a year-or-two ago
of their Sent from my Telephone conceptual work. This is a
four-and-a-half hour long set, comprised of over 100 tracks, some simply
fragments but all of an astonishingly high quality, painstakingly put together
by Noa Kurzweil with Levi Lanser, and released digitally by the STROOM label.
STROOM is based in Belgium, which seems apt as there is wonderfully something
of the more arty end of Les Disques de Crépescule about the Voice Actor
project, in an updated sense.
At the ICA Noa (at least I presume it was) sang
and spoke from behind giant net curtains on which were projected films (such as
extended everyday footage of a North London high street) so that she seemed to
become a spectral part of the film. And the music was gorgeous: warming waves
of skewed electronica, warped beats, and chopped samples making up abstract
hip-hop collages which underpinned everything.
It was all wonderfully disorientating, and when
Noa was matter-of-factly speaking Cristina / Mary Weiss-style it seemed like we
were illicitly listening in on a therapy session where a mesmerised counsellor has
allowed the patient a free reign and dare not interrupt the flow. Or perhaps it
was the contents of a recovered cache of Carver-inspired confessional
cassettes, stream of consciousness randomly accessed memories that drag you in.
It is easy to fall under the Voice Actor spell.
Then when Noa sings it is in such a deadpan, world-weary,
though curiously intimate way. I have never seen an audience so spellbound and
silent. Somehow there was a suggestion in the air of a fantasy Boards of
Canada, Vanessa Daou’s Zipless from way back, and also Carl Craig’s
beautiful ‘As Time Goes By (Two People Sitting Under a Tree)’ as sung by Sarah
Gregory, who once graced the ICA stage with Allez Allez in the 1982 Joy of
Mooching series of shows. And, while I am admittedly late to this, the Sent
from my Telephone extravaganza really works, albeit in small doses, and the
music is of a consistently and appealingly inventive throughout. I guess in a
bizarre way it is a weird mutant update on what Rod McKuen and Anita Kerr were
doing a long time before.
Then there was The Black Dog. I may not have seen
Everything But The Girl with Paul Weller at the ICA, but at least I have had
the honour of seeing The Black Dog perform there. And it was a wonderful hour-long
seamless mix of music and film, from the eerie ambient soundscapes at the start
through to the climactic brutal ending, with varispeed head nodding galore,
onstage behind the laptops and among the rapt audience. I think it fair to say
the collective’s performance was a celebration of defiant survival, and was recognised
as such by all present. It certainly felt like a cleansing experience, which is
what we all need from time to time.
