Animal Collective have got the knack for reinventing themselves continuously while somehow pretty much never bulging at all, having taken a sinuous path from Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s original lo-fi smudges of Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished to the more accessible and poppier Feels And Strawberry Jam. Their latest effort, Merriweather Post Pavilion, sees the Collective’s trademark hypnotic sound seriously electronically enhanced, as if Strawberry Jam had been dipped in Detroit grooves and properly disfigured by heavy doses of acid. Animal Collective, in a trio configuration in the absence of Deakin, gave the tracks off Merriweather a thorough airing at Koko, kick-starting the show with In The Flowers and Taste, then scanning through Bluish, Summertime Clothes or Daily Routine Continue Reading »

Pacing the room like a dragon scanning a dark cave for intruders, breathing heavily, following the sent of unfamiliar bodies, Oren Marshall’s opening piece of this performance at the Purcell Room, on the South Bank in London was made solely of breathing sounds propelled through the gigantic mouth of his tuba. Music was not the concern here; instead, it seemed as if Marshall’s purpose was to get up close and personal with his audience. Getting off the stage to walk slowly past the whole front row, then venturing up a few steps on each on the aisles, it felt as if Marshall and the audience were evaluating each other. Once back on stage, the sounds extracted from the tuba were processed through various delays to build the outlines of cyclical pieces and occasional rhythmic patterns. Twisted and bent out of shape, the sounds coming out of the instruments seemed to gain otherworldly features, sounding for a moment like a broken acid squelch or a little girl’s scream, until, at one point, the layers of noise had very little to do with the reality of the instrument. It is with his last piece thought that Marshall demonstrated the highest level of dexterity. Continue Reading »

In a way, Halloween and dark dance floors exist for the same reason: to encourage people to let go of inhibitions and look a little silly, if only for a moment.  Being on a dance floor during a good DJ set is analogous to attending a costume party, possessed by the temporary thrill of leaving one’s own mundane insecurities for the rush of an alternatively structured social situation.  Maybe New York’s infamous Club Kids were on to something, always flaunting such flamboyantly unusual fashions.

The night’s main event is a live set from Audion, Matthew Dear’s hard minimal house alias, the desirous Id to the Ego confessions from his given name or the detached mechanical Superego that is False. Continue Reading »

It was a busy day for Joanna Newsom this Sunday 20 July, with no less than two performances, the first at noon at the Latitude Festival in Southwold, Suffolk, and the second in the grand settings of Somerset House in the heart of London. This had left her with very little time to familiarise herself with the evening venue. As she took her place behind her harp, she was visibly incredulous, first at how white the crowd was, then at the venue itself, whispering a shy ‘this is… mad’ as she looked around. Continue Reading »

Swedish ensemble Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin, whose debut album, Heatcore, was recently released outside of their homeland by Leaf, graced Kilburn’s Luminaire for a somewhat short but perfectly formed headlining set.

First to take to the stage was London-based Banjo Or Freakout, who has gained a bit of a reputation in recent months with the tracks posted on the act’s MySpace page and was featured on Drowned In Sound’s artists to look out for. Continue Reading »

There could hardly have been a greater contrast than that between the high spirited Hungarian folk motifs of A Hawk And A Hacksaw and the dark overtones of Portishead. Playing their second date in London, a couple of weeks after the Hammersmith Apollo, Portishead took over the Brixton Academy in South London, ahead of the release of their long awaited third album at the end of the month. Continue Reading »

Rarely are abstract electronic acts as well known for their live sets as for their recorded output. Given such a heavy reliance on sequencing and studio edits, one could be forgiven for getting bored watching someone noodle around with pre-recorded tracks on a laptop. Autechre, on the other hand, have taken a very different approach, eschewing laptops for their live performance, and instead working with a mix and match of sequences, almost all of them unreleased, for a live show that is intense and unforgettable. Continue Reading »

The Efterklang caravan stopped in London’s Bush Hall on Friday, as part of their two-week-long tour of the UK. Taking their Parades album, released a couple of months ago, on an extensive international tour, the Danish quintet and their troops couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate venue. Formerly known as the Carlton Dance Hall, Bush Hall, in the heart of West London’s Sheppard’s Bush, was built at the beginning of the twentieth Century by William F. Hurndall, a publisher, as a gift for one of his daughters. It has since been a soup kitchen during the Second World War, and was, in the fifties and sixties, turned into a bingo hall and amusement arcade, before being turned into a concert venue at the turn of the millennium. The highly ornate ceilings and walls have been preserved, and grand chandeliers offer a testament to the place’s former grandeur. Continue Reading »

Have you ever visited the seaside on a blustery, rain-swept day? Did you see seagulls hunkered down on the beach, their heads tucked into their bodies as they stoically weather the storm? As I looked at my fellow audience members that’s what I thought of as Haswell/Hecker brought their noise-storm down upon us. A few people made for the exit, many put their fingers in their ears and the rest, myself included, stood and endured.

We were surrounded, you see: speaker stacks on each side of the Conway Hall. A strobe light and a green laser strafed the black-clad, elaborately pierced crowd and reflected off two strategically placed mirror balls (whose presence seemed just a touch ironic). Continue Reading »

Coinciding with the release of his third album, Cosmos, Murcof’s Fernando Corona recently embarked on a European tour, with a handful of special performances in Planetariums, the first of which took place at the newly opened Peter Harrison Planetarium, part of the Royal Observatory, in the superb settings of Greenwich Park. From the outside, the slick dark modern structure of the planetarium, situated between the main observatory and the South Building, which, until three years ago, housed the old planetarium, resembles a giant telescope pointing toward the sky, while the restored Victorian main building acting as a majestic earthy ground anchor. Continue Reading »