Pram / Rodney Cromwell (live at The Lexington)

London
22 July 2018

With a backdrop of toy robots, Rodney Cromwell were first up to ply their wares. A solid three-piece with a rather special take on synth-led indie, they breeze through their upbeat and groovesome set.

A ghosting of ELO guitar between beatbox heartbeats, the bass flying with Peter Hook-esque folds, the Korg and Moog knitting a melodious manatee as monotonous vocals and wry observation hit an insistent ’80s post-punk, then dive into a sugar rush of Depeche Mode curls. The squelchy and upbeat slow techno beat of “Black Dog” is rather wholesome too.

Before launching into the last track, Adam Cresswell briefly apologies to Pram for putting them on in Reading for 150 quid and serving them microwave pizzas, adding “I should have gone for oven-bake”, before descending into a sunny Autobahn of “Aotovia”, replete with a radiophonic freak-outs.

Since seeing Pram at The Point in Oxford too many years ago, I’ve never passed up an opportunity to see them in the flesh, and tonight the expectation is positively electric as they rummage around with their pre-gig preps. Nice to spy the chipped enamel of Pram’s vintage ironing board (their trademark synth stand since their Too Pure days) is still in action as Sam Owen covers it with a glitzy cloth and the rest of the band limber up to a lilting bit of birdsong before exploding into action.

“Shimmer” hits first, all wobbly-saw cabarets and B-movie jazzations, that trombone tearing through as if the 1920s were just yesterday, transporting you clean away on a magic carpet ride of their own concoction. With “Thistledown” (that closely follows) they delve in a strange, sightly scary, curiosity shop of dusty taxidermy as the screen behind flickers with these shadowy apparitions that milk a macarbrea of slippery manoeuvres, float in a flame of differing focal points. Sam’s distant sweetness of voice drifting through a thicket of undulating erythema and mermaiding melodics, the kiltering percussion jangling like a pair of Bet Lynch’s earrings.

Only two tracks into the set and this blew previous encounters clean out of the water. They’ve still got the introspective itch, that fascination of the fantastical — but this stuff is more driven, fuller, bolstered with a renewed confidence, and man those drums are a real powerhouse to kick you straight out of this Brexit coma. When I heard Rosie Cuckston (Pram’s primary linchpin) had left the band in search of academia, I thought that was the end for the band. I’m really glad they are still here, with plenty of punches left to pull.

A new album fav (of mine) “Electra” gets a hot and swampy rendering, bendy with Theremin thermals and alligatoring guitar, a submerged city swimming in shoaling sonics, Sam’s sizzling flutations cutting in. Across The Meridian is fast becoming my album of 2018, and this gig is cementing that impression with each and every track. Some of tonight’s action takes in a few tracks from The Moving Frontier, but it’s mostly showcasing this brilliant return to form. Tunes that gallop away with an inventiveness, that you just want to grab whole-heartedly. When they hit “The Midnight Room” it’s incendiary, as those drums nail the imperative and the smeary brass pond-skates your hips with sleazy Baloo-like bazzazz.

Crackly with looped bassoon and African drumming, “Sailing Stones” swims on a ’60s verve, letting the waltz-scape weasels free to later bluebottle your senses in malfunctioning sci-fi. A smorgasboard of curio, on-screen and off, then (a bit of a throwback to verve of older stuff) “Mayfly” breezes in there, slow and melancholic, a squeezebox metronome, Laurence Hunt’s hand tonal-eking the stylophone’s steely amber. What a joyous clash of colours, those Django-esque frets a tangent triggered germ of dancability as the trombone begins to sound like a boozy remix of Thomas Dolby’s “Hyperactive”. A sound that ensnares you in its hypnotic sway, storyboards your imagination in lullabying narcotics.

Everyone seems to be proficient with at least two or three instruments, Sam appearing the most versatile of all, swapping between her large collection of reeded instruments throughout the set, then slipping in a bit of Parisian purr from her accordion, and for the final tracks strapping into an enormous bass guitar, as the sound got growly to a slo-mo of on-screen explosions. Absolutely brilliant.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-