The Lexington, London 19 January 2011
It's a red-light night tonight at The Lexington, north London's finest whiskey bar and excellent venue to boot. Red décor and red lights make for a surreally-flattened visual experience, as if watching tonight's bands during one of the more blood-soaked sections of Suspiria. But there's no gothic horror show from Eat Lights, Become Lights - their take on psychedelic immersion is far more in the Düsseldorf tradition, as befits what is effectively Klub Motorik's house band.
There are four main ways of making music that sounds different to anyone else: by devising your own conceptual framework; using rare or unique instruments and equipment; developing an unusual approach to your instrument; or by training until your technique is broader, faster or more specialised than that of other players. Depending on your level of insecurity you may reinforce these with deliberate obfuscation, whether that entails removing the labels from your vinyl, claiming that you don’t understand or aren’t interested in your own process or ability, hiding your equipment or simply not answering questions. It depends whether or not you’re afraid of the competition or you think you’re the kind of person who’s only going to have one decent idea in your lifetime...
OK, first things first. Until The Light Takes Us isn't really a music movie. It's not a musical, for a start, though that would be awesome. Can you fucking IMAGINE how awesome that would be??? It isn't a musical, though. It's not even a movie ABOUT music, because while it DOES talk about the music, it moves swiftly on. It's kind of a movie about musicians, because all its leading characters are musicians, but their musicianship is not really the issue - fuck it. Let's start here. Let's get that can, rip the lid off and chuck the worms out onto the newly-painted floor. Until The Light Takes Us is about Norwegian Black Metal.