A.p.a.t.T., Drumize (DJ Scotch Egg Band), Duracell, Stig Noise - London Luminare - 22/7/07
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
First on are Stig Noise, a band who consist of a drummer, a guitarist, a bass player, a lap steel player, a man with a tiny trumpet, and a record / keyboard / Theremin player. Sounds great, doesn't it? It does. But as per usual with bands with line ups that sound to good to be true, Stig Noise fail to do anything particularly interesting with it, despite having a nice rock feel. They've apparently been around for about ten years, and what with this being their last gig for a while, there was genuinely a special feel to their set. It's always good to hear a Theremin, and I like the guy who plays it in general. Elsewhere, the trumpet player is obviously a talented fellow, but the way his instrument cuts through all the other sounds is a bit too much. Stig Noise also partake in a pet hate of mine, coming out in to the audience to try to get people excited in a way that just comes across as a little embarrassing. I'm an annoying, standing there stroking my chin kind of gig-goer because I like to think a lot about what I'm watching and feel comfortable doing it. If you like to go crazy, that's cool, whatever man. I was young once. I need space at this age. One guy who seems to be enjoying it however is Bar Bar Luck from King Prawn, who's in the audience. Yeah, you remember him? Good times, good times...
Duracell's set is undoubtedly the highlight of the night, one from which everyone went away feeling they had just really seen something. The whole thing was performed by an incredible drummer who had midi-synced some of the drums on his kit to some obscure hardware that was then going through his laptop. The sounds that came out were very C-64 esque - no bad thing. He cleverly played around with the options of the hardware a fair amount but basically for the most of the set, every time he hit the snare the next high note programmed into his computer would play, and then every time he played his bass drum a low note would play. From what I could gather, he mostly played old computer game classics using this technique, but when he treated us to a cover of 'Ride the Skies' by Lightning Bolt it was obvious that his drumming was very influenced by Brian Chippendales, not only from the speed and sound, but from the fact that he was playing in the middle of the floor. It was nice of him not to deny so huge an influence, but this wasn't just some predictable Lightning Bolt copy cat, far from it, on closer inspection the most impressive parts of the set were when he played absurdly difficult polyrhythmic classically influenced madness. The entire crowd really just stood in awe and started screaming for more when it looked as if his set was closing. Yet he asked how much time he had left (to a reply of 'enough, c'mon!'!), then asked if we'd like to hear 'Space Harrier'. So everyone in the room shouted 'yeah!', and he proceeded to play this. Duracell is one of those acts you should go out of your way to see before he gets big. Then you should go see him again.
By this point you had a very hyped up audience looking forward to seeing Drumize, who are in essence DJ Scotch Egg with the drummer from Trencher, a drummer from Boredoms and someone else who I couldn't find any information on whatsoever. With all the excitement drummed up by Duracell, not to mention our anticipation of this lot, it was easy to let it slip your mind that Drumize is a side project of people who have a lot to do with their time and probably don't practise all that much as a group. As such this wasn't quite the display of drum wizardy that you might have hoped for, but it was still one hell of a fun and action filled set none the less. Some of the most intense and majestic parts came when they all pounded the hell out of drum kits with Scotch Egg splazzing out on the sh-101. I think the main thing that people would have expected and been disappointed that they weren't given more of is cleverly layered drum parts with all the drum players playing in time, when what it was, was four people having a laugh - three of them with drum kits with Scotch Egg conducting them as if he were Eye from the Boredoms. I thought that this formless frenzy of percussion being whipped into a fully formed frenzy was really exciting. They finish with a keyboard demo of a George Michael song, letting it play out while they just danced around.
Finishing off the night Were A.p.a.t.T., whose thing is mostly being crazy. Yet they play suspiciously like a group of people who met on a music degree. They were all very talented, apart from the singer from Stig Noise who seemed to be there for no discernable reason apart from getting in the way and genrally threatening to damage equipment through recklessness, and they were all multi instrumental bar the guitar player. To start with, no one really seemed to make of this weird bunch, but by the end of the set they had won the crowd over with their fun approach to a range of musical genres. The obvious comparison is Mr. Bungle, but the only band that have ever really come close to Bungle are Secret Chiefs 3 - in comparison to that bunch, A.p.a.t.T. are very rough around the edges. Some of their melodies are a bit naff and a lot of the time they seem to ping pong between the two dynamics of heavy and jazz lounge, but at times their melodies are exceptional, and arrangements are consistently thoughtful. The various sounds being made by each of the members can also sometimes come across a bit thrown together, but the main point with A.p.a.t.T. is that by the end of the night they've put everyone in a really good mood, largely due to playing silly, silly melodies very, very well.
All that remains is to thank Upset the Rhythm for another fantastic gig.
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