The Social, Nottingham
30 May 2001
The first act were Floach, an electronics duo from ScoobyDooLand. With a table full of electronic contraptions that would have made Throbbing Gristle drool (and a hairstyle that would have frightened Dave Hill from Slade), they cooked up a glorious electronic rumpus. If Pierre Henry had been commissioned to compose the incidental music for a Carry On film, it would have probably sounded like this. Sometimes they hit a groove, other times they just turned up the heat and let their pots boil over. Watching lab technicians at work is usually a boring experience, but Floach were smart enough to suss this out and took the piss out of themselves in such a charming way that you couldn’t help but like them. They made you like them.
Next act, Southall Riot. Oh dear. The classic scenario; It’s all very well, and they’re probably nice people, and they’re “hard working” and it probably is “well played”, it probably even is “good”, but it is just Nothing Special. There are probably ten bands like this in every rehearsal studio in the UK, all beavering away, all working hard, all starting their own websites and printing their own T shirts (obligingly worn by their girlfriends and close mates) and taking themselves very “professionally” and thinking that they alone, out of 4,000 other bands who sound exactly the same, are somehow going to “make it” (through all the “hard work” they put in). Oh yeh, I almost forgot – the music? I dunno – The Eagles trying to be the Velvet Underground? Who cares? Good luck to them.
Finally, Acid Mothers Temple, billed as “The Japanese Gods of Freakout Mayhem.” As a complete antithesis of what had gone before, this was something so special, so unique, so “out there”. is a key word here: before they’d even played a note, I found myself totally transfixed by this exotic vision that had literally stepped from another world: Wizards from The Water Margin given a makeover by The Incredible String Band and hair courtesy of the Hair Bear Bunch. The most wildly beautiful band I’ve ever seen.
The music was spellbinding, stunning; shimmering washes of delicious sonic acupuncture, building to peaks of swirling intensity, but with that instinctive awareness of the point at which freeform Cosmic Bliss can become Horrible Noise and getting oh-so-close, but never once crossing it. The Captain may have lost his marbles, but he kept a firm hand on the wheel.
To call this psychedelic rock wouldn’t do it justice: this was something infinitely more inventive; taking elements of the psychedelic/Krautrock sound, but instead of going for any of the easy and obvious structural options (i.e. gumby rockisms, ambient, dub, the “funky drummer” routine or twee hippy codswallop) the sound took on forms and structures from influences completely outside the planet inhabited by guitar rockers and computerised bleep merchants alike.
Just when it couldn’t seem to get any more out there, the instruments (two guitars, drums, bass and keyboards) took a breather and the bass player launched into a spot of Tuvan throat-singing! This segued perfectly into an acapella version of some Russian (?) folk song with the full band doing harmonies; real finger-in-the-ear stuff. And if that weren’t enough, for the last number they were joined on stage by Julian Cope, who roared, whooped, pulled “face solos”, then disappeared, only to emerge a few seconds later between the keyboard player’s legs. Lifting her up on to his shoulders, they co-piloted the synth; the one with his hands and the other with her feet. Blissful, Majestic and Infinite, no-one can get further Out Of Sight than this!
-Stream Angel-
