Hair Police & Horatio Pollard - London Gramophone - 14/8/06
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
As cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message" - by which he meant that these days genres are now being defined more and more by the medium, or in this case the equipment that the culture is being communicated through, rather than the overall aesthetic. From what one can tell, Horatio Pollard (***) is using a sampler, a mixer and some effects units, and he is not the only noisy person who can currently be found doing so - Esquilax, Rolo Tomassi, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed all use some sort of similar hardware, not to mention the wealth of black metal bands such as Otum, Rectepulant and Bathory in addition. What makes this interesting is that they're using similar equipment to those crafting what could be deemed 'old skool' acid, such as Ceephax and Edmx. Slowly but surely there seems to be a bizarre cross over emerging - and a lot of it is happening here in England.
All that being said, noisy bands, unlike those crafting acid music, tend to sound quite angry, and Horatio Pollard does sound bloody furious. Whether anger can be considered an aesthetic or not I'm unsure, but he sounds truly livid, especially when screaming "all the f**king people, like little f**king ants" (or something to that effect) into his microphone. Again, like acid, this is fast and exhilarating stuff, with a lot vaguely comical, up beat and quirky melodies utilised. It can, due to occasional lapses in subtlety, get a little boring in places, but from time to time there arrive some genuinely interesting arrangements. The drum machine allows Pollard to pummel the audience with minimal performance effort, allowing him to scream down the microphone to his hearts content.
Of course, the other side to the 'medium is the message' theory is the argument that music is not about the actual instrument so much as it is about finding a rapport with the one you're using. As Brian Eno has it, the reason why there are still innovative three piece rock bands emerging is because they're each finding new rapports with the instruments they play. This could very well be said to apply to Hair Police, as surprisingly enough they are but a three piece, including a drummer (Trevor Tremaine) and a bassist (Mike Connelly of Wolf Eyes, and owner of the Gods of Tundra label). Completing the line up is the other guy, Robert Beatty, and I'm ashamed to say I have no idea what he's playing. It seems like it's some sort of old oscillator, attached by a big tube to a tiny unit that may have once been a keyboard, now strapped around him, hitched up near his throat. Whatever it is - I want one. Not only does it look totally amazing, but you can see the circuitry has been bent by someone who really knows what he is doing, I would bet anything he did systems at school.
The music starts slow and quiet. We get a few minutes of build up with the drummer tapping around expressively, whilst Connelly dirges away on his bass. It then strips back so Connelly can be heard squeezing his voice box to produce a harrowing shriek, the sort one might make if you sliced open your thumb on a carpentry knife. The last time I heard vocals as satisfyingly throat shredding as this was upon seeing Khanate, but even still, at this point they don't seem to have mustered up as much noise as Horatio Pollards much more hi-tech machines.
But, two minutes later, they have blown the digital machines out of the water. They gradually lead the audience to a point where the music becomes so fluid that all there is left is a menagerie of sounds that one can explore at will. This band in general is a lot more attuned to death metal bands than Connelly's other band Wolf Eyes, something reflected in the instrumentation and artwork. But despite their metal associations, compared to Horatio Pollard, Hair Police are romantics. This is shown in the leather jacket, the expressive playing bordering on free jazz, and the sound being one of desperation rather than anger. Behind the band is a big black banner with an animal skull, and scrawled underneath it the words 'Gnarly Times' (bizarrely, the title of their new album). Maybe it's because of these gnarly times that they appear so desperate, so fraught in fact they occasionally come close to falling over. This adds to the excitement not only because I am close enough to the band in this tiny venue to come off badly from one of their falls, but also, it'd be interesting to hear if it actually made a difference to the music.
By the middle of the set, it's clear why Hair Police are such a successful band. As fun as it is to make all out, crazy, insane noise (as many noise bands claim its all about), the majority of the more successful noise acts show a high degree of sophistication and subtlety. Rather than being a constant barrage of clamour, their playful approach to structure could in fact be compared to modern jazz. But where some jazz may give freedom within certain scales and melodic structures, Hair Police's approach allows them to have a degree of freedom over various sections of a composition, or freedom within a style of expression, whether explored in one instrument or all of them. The set ends up coming across in satisfying sections. At times the sound is reduced to low rumblings and taps, at others it's a barrage of delayed noise, whilst they can also spend time just playing fast, heavy rock. Whichever they choose to try, they do it well.
Then, another revelation - the whole night only set me back a fiver. Here's to promoters Upset the Rhythm for another high value show, and for continuing to offer even more amazing, alternative, affordable nights out.
*NB - the scary picture is the cover of a Hair Police record. That's not what they look like.
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