Barden’s Boudoir
turns out to be a wide, narrow basement beneath the
derelict furniture store from which it takes its name.
The club is situated in the no man’s land between
London’s Stoke Newington and Dalston, a nowhere
that rather surprisingly turns out to have a name (Shacklewell).
How former Wire coverstars, the improbably named Jackie-O
Motherfucker, come to be playing here isn’t clear,
but here they are, a world away from their hometown,
Portland, Oregon. Behind tonight’s two support
acts stands an unusual array of instruments. When Jackie-O
eventually take their places, it becomes clear that
each member is paired with a table of assorted soundmaking
tools. The two men at the back of the low stage, replete
with floppy shoulder-length hair and identical t-shirts,
stand behind horizontal guitars which they play through
a variety of effects pedals and menace with cheap electrical
toys. The woman, front left, occasionally sings but
mostly plays percussion using small, suspended chimes
and other less identifiable items. These three are later
announced to be the trio My Cat Is An Alien, frequent
collaborators with Jackie-O. Jon Greenwood at the front
right of the stage, plays guitar, sings and puts on
records which prove inaudible, at least to the audience.
For the first ten minutes or so, there’s a sustained,
tentative humming and occasional scratching that doesn’t
appear to go anywhere. From this doubtful beginning
they proceed to hang around, drift together and apart
again like slow-motion flotsam that’ll never see
the sea. Occasionally, despondent voices raise themselves
reluctantly above a murmur and then give up the ghost.
It’s as if the four of them are waiting for something,
but with little hope of anything actually happening.
Gradually though, the sounds they are making gather
slowly together despite the odds. That accretion becomes
a haunted, haunting wail of sound which proves to be
all the more powerful because of the forlorn lassitude
that preceded it. Next Greenwood weaves a gently benevolent
trance out of a hypnotic guitar line and muttered vocals.
For their finale piece they transmute near nothingness
into a sudden storm in a desert of the mind. Jackie-O
communicate a very American sense of desolation, loss
and widescreen expansiveness. From their intent, small-scale
activities they conjure delicate wasteland atmospheres
that are frequently very beautiful. They should be first
in line to soundtrack the film of William Burroughs’s
Place Of Dead Roads. It’s a movie that will probably
never be made, but it should be. Either way, its unlikely
prospect hangs in the air like the promise of Jackie-O
Motherfucker’s music.
Colin Buttimer |
