Coil
Mind Your Head
Royal Festival Hall, London
1^st October 2002

Following an introduction which emphasises the psychedelic nature of the selection of musicians and bands from Glenn Maxx, the South Bank Centre's mastermind for the Mind Your Head season, Coil emerge on stage bathed in UV light, their white costumes stark as the sine waves of their opening number, traces of the music projected visually on the giant screen behind the band. They are joined by Massimo and Pierce of Black Sun Productions, who stand to the front as nude statues in deliberately-paced motion, palms out and impassive as the chaos of noise and light builds behind almost as slowly. The strobes kick in at brain-bending frequencies to match the electronic whirlwind, subliminal texts flicker across the screen, and John Balance dusts his hands, declaring "Electricity has made angels of us all", as the emergent bass rumbles rhythms into the hall.

Squitters and gurgles of Burroughsian synths and words in his honour pull matters further back and faster, as Balance informs the audience; Stravinsky strokes creep out to a watchful ring of fire wreathing incensed scents and cranked-down rhythms, and the sight of lemurs and millipedes in timeless struggle fills the wall behind. The music ascends into squeaking arrhythmia and escaping vocalisations echoplexing into insanity - "We are feral...we are animal,,, we are horses," declares Balance, staring around the rest of Coil, at the projections and the crowd as if unsure that any or all are really there, jerking and spasming to the screech and snitches of the electronic abyss.

The cacophony of sound which follows is matched by colourful blotches in motion: the nudes raise arms as Romanesque pillars bracketing Balance's itchy Pan-led restlessness. "The Sun is coming" he warns, accompanied by sonic sunspots sputtering and erupting in a solar windstorm around the trio which the technicians of Starship Coil work their mysterious electronic machinations behind. Darkness falls to a shimmering scatter of trebly tones, and it doesn't seem certain if Balance considers the sun's arrival is an entirely benificial event as the title "Warning From the Sun" perhaps indicates.

A short poetry reading from Massimo to the accompaniment of amplified and enhanced insect chirrups precedes a mournfully-slow rendition of "Ostia", Coil's homage to the visionary Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pictures of the man himself and still images of empty rooms and ominous towers flick past while the Black Sun boys pass out apples from the bountifully-laden baskets on stage among the rows of seats. The cyclical swirl of the song finds new levels of sad reflection on a murdered artist, and the ending comes in digital snowflakes, chilly and elevating at the same time, the Festival Hall shrouded in a respectully weird atmosphere. The fruit distribution continues during the screeching anguish of "I Don't Want To Be The One", as Balance's heartfelt, rending flow of distracted anti-Messianic self-denial and almost piteous excoriation of connection with worldliness pours into the gathering strobes and spears of coloured lights, bringing forth a primal electronic storm screams.

So it's quite a surprise when the next piece is a strange cover of Sonny And Cher's "Bang Bang", slowed to a torch song croon with Thighpaulsandra's piano accompaniment, exposing both the limits and range of Balance's voice in the process. This is probably the high point of high camp of Coil's live performances thus far, and one which, while not entirely overcoming (or maybe even surpassing) the saloon-bar misery of the original, they bring off with considerable dignity. The finale of what is a shortened set for their current live tour combines Throbbing Gristle with Tangerine Dream, as the rolling ethereal synth chords and wobbly pulsations of "Are You Shivering" ooze out while a virtual yellowed sea washes in the gravitational fields of the bright white moon on screen. This is one of a magickal band's most spellbinding moments, the gurgling electronic voices floating through the disquieting ambient ocean bringing incandesent life to the stage as bats fly from the lunar surface in hyperreal loops. While the nudes breath deeply to the rhythms, the auditorium of the Festival Hall seems almost frozen in time by an apparently endless song of sub-zero lunar collapse, completing the trip with a nagging question from Balance circling in the mind - "Are you loathesome tonight?"

-Richard Fontenoy-

Coil;
Mount Vernon Astral Temple
Megalithomania!
Conway Hall, London
14^th October 2002

Megalithomania! was the result of a collaboration between 3rd Stone magazine and Strange Attractor. Its obvious aim was to expose the ever-increasing convergences between the two polar extremes of academic archaeology and psychedelic counterculture, something brought to the fore quite publicly with the success of Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian. Following Cope's timely broadening of the convergence, Megalithomania! sought to deepen it, gathering diverse representatives of new approaches to past and place into a full day and night of talks, stalls, exhibitions, films and musical performances.

After an evening pub-break from a day packed with lectures and talks, the right-brain nightside of the proceedings was kicked off by veteran head Brian Barritt introducing Flinton Chalk's short film Psychedelic Archaeology. With some preliminary scene-setting done - the film's subject is the equinox sunrise entering Cairn T at Loughcrew in Ireland - the film zoomed in on the stone inside the tomb whose entoptic carvings were being touched by the sun's golden rays. These carvings, abstract geometric shapes such as concentric circles and spirals, are now acknowledged by all but the most fusty of academic archaeologists to probably be the result of visionary trance states in which such forms - encoded into the human optic nerve, and signalling to the individual a dramatic shift in consciousness - are perceived. This film's soundtrack - by the BarritTones - featured deep drones hitting the 111 Hz mark that is the resonant frequency of the Cairn T chamber. In short, it attempted to rekindle the shift in consciousness that was believed to fuel the tomb/temple's original life. Brief but effective, the film left a lot of people hungry for more, in both the negative sense of being disappointed by its brevity, and the positive sense of wanting to get on the first ferry to Ireland.

I missed Wigwam and Gorodisch in a whirl of mingling, but caught Mount Vernon Arts Lab's (or Astral Temple as they were billed for variation) uncompromising performance. Drew Mulholland emitted stark, spiralling walls of electro-noise to accompany his film showing curious modern stone constructions in parts of the Scottish landscape. The film's success at capturing the oddly intriguing juxtapositions of bland concrete architecture would have made J.G. Ballard proud, but I have to admit the soundtrack left me cold. It wasn't quite resonant enough for its repetition to become engaging.

Coil, on the other hand, did what they do, delivering a truly strange performance specially tailored for the night. Awash with projections of green ripples throughout, what began with plinky electronic dripping noises slowly evolved into a rumbling, disconcerting, openly confrontational comment on the event. After some bemusing antics with an unrecognisable stuffed object (later revealed to be Balance's "unlucky rabbit") - bearing all the hallmarks of the backdrop to a David Lynch scene - Jhon Balance began intoning, both on tape and into the microphone: "They are not there. They are here. I am not here... They are not there..." (The event was billed as "a celebration of our awesome monuments and the people who built them" - my emphasis.)

Heaving a monitor speaker around, Balance grew more threatening until he seemed to snap and jumped into the audience screaming, "Why are you here? Why are you here?", holding the microphone out. The line between theatre and genuine aggression was thin, but clearly revealed as the music wound up, the applause and appreciative screams thundered, and Balance waved his thanks, head held high as the curtains drew together. A friend remarked that gigs - not just Coil - were commonly much more confrontational in the early 80's. I imagine this is true, so I'm glad people like Coil are still mustering the energy to even try to walk that border between performance and personal confrontation, as an alogical extension of their uniquely potent, abrasive and ambiguous musical creations.

In all, a grand day for megaliths, psychedelic culture and eclecticism. As both the tweedy ley-hunter figure and the tie-died hippy fall into obscurity or irrelevance, it's intriguing and exciting to see what new forms and styles we can create to funnel this potent urge for the land and expanded consciousness through. Megalithomania! was a step in the right direction.

-Gyrus-

NB. This is an edited version of a longer review of the Megalithomania! event, due to appear in another place soon.

Bobby Conn
Trash @ The End, London
11^th February 2002

The End is a fairly bad venue for a live gig. The room where Bobby Conn is playing tonight is wide but not deep enough to hold the capacity crowd who have sweated their way into the bar area to witness Chicago's favourite Judeo-Christian Edutainer develop his own particlar brand of FM Radio cabaret Art-Rock. Add in the lack of monitors for the group, and it's quite a pleasant surprise when the sound is actually acceptable after all, even if the crush is a little close for comfort. When Conn and his band eventually sweep onstage, it's to the stunned laughter of a crowd who've just witnessed the sartorial elegance of a group decked out specially for the night in charity shop shell suits and Scandinavian Black Metal face makeup.

What a show they deliver. With a band who can bring more sleazy Funk than Jamiroquai could ever exude, out-Rocking Rush and aiming for epic Prog heights last visited by High Tide on their cosmic sailing ships constructed from violin and lurching powerchords, the larger than life stage persona of Bobby lets rip in a maniacal range of facial expressions. Slicing wafer-thin pieces off the American Dream and serving them up with a side order of relish at the horrendous stupidity of it all, songs such as "A Taste Of Luxury" revel in the decadent excess of Western Civilization while stabbing cruelly at its overworked cultural heart - its Pop music. Copping riffs and grooves from Soul, Disco and Funk and slamming them into the deranged mania of the past's radio friendly icons of oddity such as Harry Nielsson or Richard Harris is one thing, but then smashing them up again in a tightly-controlled rage of bombastic Hard Rock fury is another level of near-genius.

The twists and turns that the posing duo of Jonathan Lee Joe at the bass controls and Strawberry guitarist Mark Ruecker (introduced as being from Slade...) wrench from their instruments are equal to the face paint as they assume the required positions to match glare with mock-cock-rock postures. Drummer Colby Stark turns the clever thrick of hiding at the back under a wide stripe of mascara while delivering a fantastically complex set of rhythms and percussion hits, but it's the glamourous duo of the demon violinist Monica BouBou and Bobby Conn in his flowery suit and Rock Star shades who hold the limelight. There is something particularly crazed about the shredding of image in the post-modern constumes which reflects the songs - the swinging intensity of "Free Love", whith its question "Where have all the dirty, dirty people gone?"; "Whores", which Bobby sings sweetly while dedicating it to all the people who have to work for a living; the ironically self-indulgent swaggering croon from baritone to falsetto of "Baby Man" or the hard-rocking thrash of "Pumper", guitars held erect in stadium style. All beg, borrow and malform familiar shapes and moves into a thorough evisceration of Modern mores and imagery, and when Jonathan whips off his purple top to reveal a Union Flag vest, or Mark bashes a tambourine while still clad in turquoise shell suit and face paint, small moments of bizarre collage are acheived visually to match the music.

However, it's the genuinely breathtaking classics of post-Pop insurrection which Bobby has penned that the band deliver full force tonight - the near blasphemous Rock Opera "Rise Up!" with its revelatory insight into the world of Jesus Christ Crackhead; the damned Funky "No Revolution" with its low and dirty analogue synth bass; and above all the storming shoutalong "United Nations". Here is where the live experience of Bobby's ambitious call to musical arms finds its peak of expression so far in songs which can be chanted, boogied and pogoed to in simultaneous release and immersion into the very fabric of revolutionary edutainment. With the manic gleam in Bobby's eyes to generate some serious onstage drama, with the generous range of string arrangements and keyboard stabs from Monica BouBou scheming to pull the music into the stratosphere, it's a performance which largely makes the following Trash Club seem somewhat flat and samey in its Indie Glamness. As the encore kicks in to "Never Get Ahead" and its observation that fellating the boss will do no good is set to the disembowelled and hyper-Funked remains of the Jackson Five, the jubilantly defiant yet still crowd-pleasing groove concludes a show from a legend in the making.

-Linus Tossio-

Bobby Conn
The Garage, London
7^th May 2002

There's been a fair amount of good press come Bobby Conn's way since he last visited these shores in February. Appreciative album and live reviews in the national papers. A full page photo (wearing a lurid 80's shellsuit) and enthusiastic write-up from Ted Kessler in the 4^th of May edition of the NME. Badly Drawn Boy Damon Gough's description of The Golden Age as "the best album he'd heard in a decade," can't exactly have hindered the spreading of the Word either, for reasons of his celebrity if nothing else. Then there's the upcoming show supporting Supergrass at the Royal Festival Hall on the 28^th of June as part of David Bowie's otherwise appallingly billed Meltdown. All in all, it seems that Bobby's star is on the rise.

I have to say, The Garage is one of my favourite venues. Admittedly the sound is only any good if you stand in exactly the right place. The apex of an equilateral triangle drawn between the left and right speakers is just right though, and tonight there's plenty of volume to fill this mid-sized venue. As always, the band's strong sense of collective identity is ably expressed by their matching dress. Tonight it's lime-green vests and tight yellow trousers. Ok, so the vests look a little like Y-fronts but that just adds to the overall eccentricity of the their appearance. This is the third time I've seen Bobby play this year and also the third change of costume I've seen the band employ, which says a lot about their playful sense of on-stage presence as well as their obvious desire to entertain.

Musically speaking, the live Bobby Conn experience serves up substantially more Sabbath in the mix than on record. The band are a versatile machine well-oiled by continuous touring. Their ability to retain a certain looseness, as well as the power to instantly lock into each other when tightness is required, means the songs are delivered with an offhand experimental ease that keeps them sounding fresh every time. Clearly this is a band with a fittingly perverse sense of playfulness as to what constitutes a "pop song". Hence the single that they're currently touring, "Winners", gets easily the most avant-garde rendering of the night, its tight white-boy Funk suddenly turning into epic, surging drone-rock. For that alone, you gotta love them...

Of course, the cause for admiration hardly ends there. Monica Bou-Bou's omnipresent violin is as essential to the sound as ever, forming an electrifying counterpoint to the guitars whilst remaining adaptable enough to play lines otherwise expressed on the far slicker, yet no less wonderful, album versions of the songs. It is Bobby's voice, however, that impresses above and beyond everything else. As I was trying to explain to some friends of mine before the performance: "Yes... he really does sing that high." Every high note he hits and every vocal swoop he makes brings home just how great a vocalist Bobby is. To the few acquaintances of mine who didn't seem to "get" the levels of irony at work on his last two albums, here is the answer to the question, "does he really mean it?" Every last fucking word. There’s no doubting the passion in that voice.

Of many highlights, "The Golden Age", "Winners", "White Bread" and a new song (provisionally titled "Relax" on the spot by Bobby) that follows on from "No Revolution", catch this reviewer's attention. The mutant Jackson Five Funk of "Never Gonna' Get Ahead" remains their undisputed finest moment though; a two-fingered salute that puts the Man firmly in his place whilst sending the crowd into a strutting, hip-shaking frenzy with a sense of impossible sureness about itself that makes it sound like a hugely popular Disco-anthem from an alternate universe. Whether Bobby Conn's music makes it over to a more mainstream audience remains to be seen. Undoubtedly it is "good-time music," but this is party music with a dark barb of lyrical irony rarely seen in its more popular contemporaries. Live, at least, Bobby is irresistibly entertaining. One can only hope more converts to his cause will swiftly follow.

Those Supergrass fans won't know what hit them...

-Sean Kitching -

Alec Empire;
Leech Woman
The Mean Fiddler, London
30^th April 2002

Just in time for Mayday, who better to start the riot early than everyone's favourite shouty German anarchist popkid, Alec Empire? And, truth be told, he doesn't disappoint. Support Leech Woman attempt to get with the whole Empire thing by scowling a lot, but, let's fucking face it, in a scowling contest with the boy Empire he's gonna come out laughing, if that makes any sense. Although, in actuality, of course, he comes out scowling like more motherfuckers than you could POSSIBLY imagine. And proceeds to rock the asses of more snow leopards than David fucking Attenborough has ever DREAMED of. (And yes, I know capitals are the tool of a madman- I'd have written this review in green biro if I could.)

"Everything Starts With A Fuck" he proclaims, but that's only half the truth- in the DHR noise utopia, everything starts with a "fuck you"- and a "fuck you" that Rage Against The Machine (much as I love `em) could only imagine in their deepest, darkest, most Guevara-fucking wet dreams. He shouts. He swears. He shoots. He scores. Prison style. And the consumate Stooges-meets-Ministry electronic rampage that is "Addicted to You" sets the fucking place on fire. While Empire's putting on the whole ROCK STAR act (which he does, incidentally, a fuck of a lot better than those who actually have the title, undeserving though they may be- he struts, pouts, does the mic-stand thing, and every inch of him screams "Crowley was wrong- every man and woman ain't a star after all- I'M the motherfucking star, and the rest of you COULD GET HERE IF YOU TRIED".

Inspirational, in the way Punk was supposed to be, before it became shorthand for "English local colour- you know, those fuckers on the postcards with the funny haircuts"), yeah, WHILE he's doing all that, Nic Endo's standing there, implacable behind facepaint and computer, carving the coolest bits from the Eternal Block Of Noise. With total precision - and here's the perpetual DHR dichotomy: perfectly fashioned chaos. Ordered randomness. Noise as a tool, or a weapon expertly deployed. With more precision than the US Army have ever learned of.

Let's cut this short, shall we?

Q- So, Emu, was it any good then?
A- Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. I'm deaf.
(Q hurriedly puts her original question on paper)
A- (shouting) OH FUCK YES.

-Deuteronemu 90210, the Destroyer-

Fad Gadget
The Garage, London
18^th January 2002

Not just another of those long-thought forgotten altered-state Pop could-have been idols extracting and revitalising themselves from the Eighties and onto the stage again, Frank Tovey, here backed up by a full band is back. In front of an audience half uncolourful and speckled with piercings in place of acne, and half old enough to have been there the first time Fad Gadget stalked the earth, tonight's show turns out to be a serious joke on the notion of Electro posturing and Gothic cabaret croons. As a passing stranger at the bar remarks as Tovey manifests in a puffing gout of theatrical smoke, all bowler-hatted and spiney-shirted, "It lives".

He lives, and is live and lively; the Electro-pop is dark and twisted, and so is Frank. No Rock star pose is too much for him, and often not nearly enough. During the course of the show, there are more tongue-waggles, outflung out arms and backflips than the average poseur half his age could manage, and more besides. Tovey shakes hands avidly with the front rows, crowd surfs across the room, bites the hand that applauds him with a tender viciousness that merks out his performance. How he is adored, and how he takes the crowd beyond the norms of appreciation, faking forced fellatio at the front of house during "Coitus Interruptus", later pulling a willing man onstage to ride him piggyback during "Back To Nature". All the while Mr Gadget lets rip some of the strangest songs of love and life ever written, stopping songs that don't start to his satisfaction, explaining simply but persuasively, "It's got to be right.".

There is a power drill for the industial grinding klang of "Ricky's Hand", a swung mic cord wrapped around the neck, pulls out his body hairs to sprinkle among the crowd during "Lady Shave", a bared chest cast with tar and feathers exposed for "Ad Nauseum" (dedicated with arch aplomb to Gary Glitter). "Fireside Favourite" is introduced thus: "It's time to get sleazy. By the way, this is Swing. So fuck off Robbie Williams." Likewise, he out-Almond's Marc, has more Techno savoire-faire than the emotionless Gary Numan ever could imagine, has the bittersweet lust/disdain for life and its inhabitants of Iggy Pop, Jim Thirlwell and Matt Johnson combined, sings with all the dark high camp passion of Peter Murphy. It's not a matter of who begat who, but of a recognition of Fad Gadget's place in the overall scheme of things that this return to public activity presents, alongside the belated Best Of Fad Gadget album the tour accompanies. Twenty years may have revealed some flaws of comparative primitivism in the recordings, but live, Fad Gadget draws strength and vigour from the situation and makes the songs writhe with newly-enhanced energy.

Most of the entertained world of consumers have never even heard of the days of mainstream interest in artists who were genuinely invigorating, however competent in the Pop scheme they might have been, let alone this tightly-wound Mr Punch and his disarmingly gripping stage presence. Frank Tovey has entertained while simultaneously caressing and gripping an audience tightly by the throat and heart tonight.

-Antron S. Meister-

Mouse on Mars;
Coil;
Plaid
The Barbican, London
27^th April 2002

Part of the Only Connect series of live events, tonight was self-described thus: "The history of computer games has also been a parallel history of the development of electronic music . . . this evening's performances are less illustrations of these sounds and more works informed by this history."

Well, Plaid set the scene well. They lived up to the computer games connection by serving up music that didn't seem substantial enough to survive as anything worthwhile without their wonderful visuals. The video projection pulses as it tracks around a space filled with cubes stretching off into the distance, some pulsing yellow in time with the zap-gun beeps and beats; iron girders touch across a shimmering backdrop to create spinning clusters of spokes whose rotations smoothly contrast with the chaos about them; a huge human eye looks around as it gets pixelated, mosaiced and otherwise digitally fragmented; a spinning mandala is revealed to be a circle of arcade consoles flicking through classics such as Defender and Donkey Kong; a simple robot arm videos the two Plaid guys as they twiddle knobs, erratically panning about their mixing board and wobbling with the vibrations.

Coil quickly burst the bleeping digital bubble. Entering to warped Gyoto-style guttural chants, with bowls of incense, white gowns, circular mirrors fringed with fluff on their chests, a couple of them with white coverings over their heads, brandishing leather straps lined with bells, they seemed even more intensely pagan than usual in contrast to the preceding incessant Electronica. Naturally, squeaks and bass rumbles were in evidence. And their luscious visuals of fungi emphasised the crystalline, almost digital quality of tryptamine hallucinations. But they weren't about to perform some commentary on arcade game effects and the abstractions of machinic audio.

So most of their set was recent material, performed by Coil, computer games be damned. Which I had no complaints about. A hurdy-gurdy and various pipes - on top of the incense and saturated colours of the light show and visuals - gave them a very organic, often ethnic feel. Thinking back to their minimalist performance of Time Machines, it was obvious that they could do 'digital abstraction', of sorts - they just didn't want to.

But as Balance asked for the stage lights to go down so the visuals could be clearly seen for the last track, and we were confronted with a flight simulator screen, it was obvious they were going to make some concession to the night's professed theme. A deep, ominous whumph pulses away. The plane takes off. The cockpit view switches to a view of the plane. It's a big passenger jet, soaring into digitised clouds. Balance starts wailing over the entrancing noises. It sounds very Arabic to me - maybe the ethnic strains of the bulk of their show adding emphasis. Are Coil trying to say something here? The plane plunges, and just as its nose hit the ground, it freezes, and then it's back in the sky. A mantric lyric creeps in: "Boys will be boys / Boys will be boys / Mushroom boys / Mushroom boys / Game boys". Soon the ground the jet's crashing into has tall blocks of skyscrapers scattered around. The obvious isn't depicted; it's never obvious. The obvious lurks. There's a creative commentary here on hi-tech games and simulation, and lo-tech terrorism and paranoia, that is unstated, oblique, profound and shocking.

I have to admit I've never spent any time with Mouse on Mars, as it were. I was assured they're worth staying for, so I did. They booted up with some laughably abstract, quiet squiggles and wibbles. Some of the audience applauded with ironic enthusiasm after about a minute of it, and one of the Mice jammed his arms in the air in a mock-rock appreciation posture, which was a small moment of comic genius. Unfortunately, the next 10 minutes did nothing to make me think they would elevate beyond their "specially commissioned" meditations on computer bleepery, and I left with that helpless animated passenger jet arcing across my mind.

-Gyrus-

Peaches;
Tarwater;
Laub;
Maximillian Hecker;
93 Feet East, London
8^th March 2002

Kitty-Yo hit London, taking over the snazzily labyrinthine 93 Feet East venue on Brick Lane for an evening of the label's quality acts and a host of guest DJs from Berlin, London and further afield, one of whom seems to be playing Generation X's "Dancing With Myself". Retro-chic has enveloped itself after all, it seems. The event is sold out with rapid ease, packing every available bar to the point where escape onto the roof terrace and the freezing night air is sometimes the only escape possible.

Back inside among the vibrantly chattering throng in the main room, Maximillian Hecker slips onstage alone with his guitar, keyboard and voice. His songs seem to resonate lonely angst and anguish, matched by music which strums glumly to itself and the audience seem to be witnesses more than participants in the live performance. The occasional punctuations of static and amped-up chords only serve to throw the pained songs into sharper relief.

Laub are here to perform their Filesharing album, and consequently bob up and down beind their matching Powerbooks with an air of somewhat nervous enjoyment, now dressed in black against a black background in direct contrast to the record sleeve. Their music is not the most immediately danceable, nor much suited to a live crowd talking amongst itself, but they do a good job of slipping out the glitchy pulses and clicks on a sliding scale of arryhtmic beats. Perhaps theirs is an esoteric form of dance music; related but not entirely of the club in and of itself, crackling with a soft energy which is revealed more than thrust forward, emergent instead of upbeat.

Antye Greie-Fuchs, spectacles propped strangely over her fetching beige post-HipHop wooly hat, occasionaly wanders forward to sing and/or vocalise into the mic; sometimes her vocal contributions appear as samples too, which adds to a sense of otherworldly communication. It could be that Laub are one of those bands who appear best in a dream sequence. Still, it is good to see live laptop musicians twiddling the knobs of their mixers and tone gerators too, actually putting hands to the instruments with an immediately audible result rather than the somewhat less than interesting sight of hunched programmer-artistes stroking the touch pads and wheeling their mice `net café-wise.

Tarwater are up next, standing lankily behind tall stacks of electronic kit in the case of Roland Lippok, while Bernd Jestram wields his bass across his own selection of electronic musical tools. Unfortunately, the sound seems to have got decidely murky for their set, and while the projections flit through multiply-angled gauzes above the crowd`s heads, it almost seems as if those same decorations are filtering the music. Words and individual notes, tones and the subtle tweaks which characterise Tarwater's langorously arch streamed consciousness on record are largely lost among the babble and the acoustics, so curious puzzles like "Tress" and "Seven Ways To Fake A Perfect Skin" are lost among the muffling and the talk. Which is a real shame, because they should be listened to properly, preferably while sitting down and relaxing to the lateral bass and electronica, pondering what exactly Mr Lippok might be talking about so elegantly in his sharply precise, relaxed and German-accented yet 99% perfect English.

No such difficulties with Peaches. Her show is full-on, in your and everyone in the vicinity's face, and provides a suitably energetic way to celebrate International Women's Day, if that indeed is what anyone's doing tonight. She puts on a highly sexualised show which somehow really only has comparision in that put on by Iggy Pop. This may seem a strange comparison, as Mr Pop is decidedly masculine, while Peaches flaunts her femaleness with no concern for the properness of femininity as the term isusually used. Feminist in the same way that Kathy Acker or Lydia Lunch are, she assaults the audience aurally and visually while teasing and provoking at the same time.

In this task she is aided by the equally full-on duo Cobra Killer, who act as her backers, sidewomen and interlude agitators, high-kicking, flag-waving and above all screaming cohorts of chaos. Is there a structure or a spontaneous riding of the mood of friendly mosh-frenzy which soon erupts? More than likely it`s a bit of both, as guest male Taylor Savvy lets rip with the fire extinguisher on a delighted crowd by now whipped to a frenzy by the stage-diving, cock-teasing and generally anarchic goings on onstage.

When Peaches exhorts "Boys, grab your dicks/Girls, shake your tits", she does more than alittle of both herself, the former with the aid of a vibrantly red strap-on rubber appendage. Very silly perhaps, but itseems to go rightly with the sleazy territory this Electro-Rock entertainer manages to summon. even the security guard onstage gets a few tweakings, looking thoroughly nonplussed throughout while retaining his composure admirably. Even if the sound is still as blurrily murky as for Tarwater, no-one really cares, because it`s a grinding, pumping, dirty groove on which to lurch and sway in the sweaty front of stage after all, and a fun one at that.

-Antron S. Meister-

Sigur Rós
Mind Your Head
Royal Festival Hall, London
1^st October 2002

After a blazing performance by Coil, (which was, incidentally, their best yet which I've seen: completely charged with the energy one craves from Coil) I was not optimistic about seeing Sigur Ros, despite being a devoted lover of Agaetis Byrjun. Another example of a headliner being shown up by their "special guests"? Just goes to show how wonderful it is when expectations are low and suprise is at hand, for Sigur Rós delivered one of the most beautiful performances I have ever seen.

There were eight of them in total, none of them looking as if they could have breached the 25 year old mark. I could not tell you a thing about their set list, as I had never heard most of the songs they played and couldn't understand them if I knew the titles. Singing in what might be their native Icelandic, might have been his own made up tongue "Hopelandish", Jón Thór Birgisson absolutely shocked me with a splendor of vocal noise the likes of which I have never witnessed. Ranging high and middle, loud and clear as a crystal goblet Jón Thór put me in mind of days gone when there was an appreciation of voice so reverant boys gave up all to become castrato chanteurs. Was this what it was like too hear the eunichs for God singing their balls off literally? And will this modern day boy be able to perform like this always?

I believe that the only things perfect about Sigur Rós is the voice of Birgisson, and the gorgeous percussion by yet another angelicly inspired young boy. Their passions for their crafts shone through massive body language so there was no mistaking their enthusiasm. Jón Thór was even able to drag a bow to and fro across his own guitar to add something barely audible but erily suited to his own voice. Everything else was only nearly perfect. The eight youths manipulated and switched theirselves around a myriad of instruments: keyboards, guitars, drums, flutes, picolos, synths, violins, cellos and a lovely piano. There were of course inevitable flaws, mostly in the use of recorded extras. Before seeing the show, I had the impression that the vocals were more shared between multiple singers. It was a bit sloppy the fading in and out of just the one boy's taped accompaniment of himself. I suppose it was a necessary evil, to maintain the layered effect of that ghostly voice, but it seems to me it could have all been pulled off a bit more discreetly.

The show was visually enhanced by a video series of home-movie-like images of children playing; all distorted and unfocused, hyper-coloured and chromed. Happy children with just a hint of taint enough to be a tiny bit disturbing. I think the band could have benefited from a bit better staging and wardrobe to really accentuate the bizare children routine instead of just appearing dowdy and blasé. The engineers at the Festival Hall do deserve a bit of kudos for fantastic lighting which worked perfectly with the evocotive music pouring forth and the sound quality for the whole night was exemplerary. I must admit to a bit of annoyance at an audience member to my rear left who felt so inspired she just had to sing along in her own off key sort of way, but then who could blame her really? Sigur Rós has that kind of haunting sound that does course through one's nerve endings and it all feels beautifully organic as the sound seems to fuse with the blood flow. If I had not restrained myself to better hear Jón Thór, I might have joined her.

There were a lot of people attending who disagreed with me utterly. The hard core of the Coil fanbase and others less given to emotional attatchment to music seemed nonplussed and retired to the bars. I think for the technical listeners, there were probably obvious mistakes or disappointments to Sigur Rós' performance, although to me, it just seemed like on purpose demonstrations of dissonance. Well, at any rate, despite the groanings of those in the audience more interested in what is avant and ultra-outré for this season, and the questionable longevity of a band like Sigur Rós, whose magic seems perhaps to be tied in with fleeting youth, tonights performance for Mind Your Head was inspiring, mysterious and spectacular.

-Lilly Novak-

Damo Suzuki Network;
Circle
8^th June 2002
Kosmische @ The Garage, London

Circle look worryingly like they're going to play pub-Rock covers of Judas Priest - but fortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Finland's finest Space Rockers (with the emphasis on the Rock) have all the churning drive of Hawkwind at their psychedelic wind-tunnel best, with all the extraneous Blues influences stripped down to the bare rage of fuzz and phaser set to splurge. Other obviously unneccessary reference points might as well include the chug-a-lug intensity of the Butthole Surfers back when they didn't bother appealing to anyone listening except their own baser selves, and Keiji Haino levitating the Albert Hall from a distance. In other words, they are on amission to the heart of the musical storm, lashed to their raging Juno 60 synth, squirming guitar feedback and occasional forays into multi-drummer action.

Their set lasts only slightly less than an aeon, and contains only a couple of songs - or is that just pauses to swap places on stage? In any case, it's refreshing to revel in the sound of a band who fill the Garage's well-developed PA with a headlong onrush of furiously out there guitar noise without saying a word, before disappearing into the night like a chthonic force.

Damo Suzuki has his own elemental properties, and they're all lovely. Probably the best singer Can ever had (though Malcolm Mooney has more than his fair share of elevatedly strange moments), Damo still generates the sort of reverential awe onstage that apparently more popularly-regarded artsists will never really manage - and he doens't need a knighthood to bolster his ego or credit card company either. Damo Suzuki is a true star, and what's even more important, a warm human being.

Accompanied by Dominik von Senger and Uwe Jahnke from the original Kosmische days plus one-man Cul de Sac rhythm section of Jon Proudman on drums, and Jason LaMaster at the electric bass controls, Suzuki's Network launches into a tighly-flowing session. Combining recognizable songs like "Don't Wait Until Tomorrow" and an evocative swing into Can's ultimate hypnodrone "Mother Sky" with lengthly loosenings into improvised trance rhythms and chiming melodies, the group work at a level of musical meshing which is occasionally breathtaking to behold.

Ultimately, as stellar in their groove-constructions as the whole band are, everyone is here for Damo and his unique stage presence - diminutive in size he may be, but when he sings, vocalizes and brings forth gutteral utterances as the set progresses, the venue stops to listen in awe. When LaMaster swaps bass for electric violin, the swooping emotion he draws from the strings weave a spell-binding swell in conjuntion with Damo's almost ectoplasmically unreal babel. Their telepathically-flowing grooves ebb and rise to the minimal underpinnings of Proudman's elegantly controlled percussion until the final close at an arbitrary but legally-set juncture. With a farewell hugs for as many of the audience as Damo can manage from their midst, the let down into Indie club normality is at least painless.

Damo's Network helped time pretty much cease to exist tonight, held in limbo by the music; and if that sounds like hyperbole to some, they quite simply weren't here.

-Linus Tossio-

David Thomas & Two Pale Boys
in Shockheaded Peter
The Albery Theatre, London
from 4th April 2002 for 11 weeks

Based on Heinrich Hoffman's dark fairy-tale Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter originally opened in 1998 and last year alone played to an audience of some 80,000 West End theatre-goers. For its 2002 production, David Thomas & Two Pale Boys appear along with the original cast, to provide their own interpretation of the music of Martin Jacques and the Tiger Lillies.

From the moment David Thomas appears through a trapdoor from under the floorboards, his considerable physical stature and glowering presence possess the stage. There are a number of giggling children in the audience and I can't help thinking of the time Pere Ubu appeared on Roland Rat (the cloth-eared rodent himself declaring: "And now... from America, maaa friends.... Pere Ubu...") in some bizarre twist of scheduling that brought the sound of the Avant Garage into the homes of unsuspecting watchers of daytime TV.

Not that there's anything bizarre about the casting of DT&2PBS in Shockheaded Peter. Although their sound is very different to the Tiger Lillies', it's difficult to imagine any other group who could fit the bill and still be individual enough as to make their mark with such style. As the musical score and accompanying narration form a large part of the show, the band's impressionistic take on Jacques' music allows them to add sinister nuances all their own. Trumpeter Andy Diagram and guitarist Keith Moline weave multiple threads of electronically manipulated brass and guitar-string triggered midi-sounds, while David Thomas' melancholy melodeon and bewildering yet beautiful vocal give the music a surreal dark ambience and subtlety that makes the Tiger Lillies' soundtrack seem two-dimensional by comparison.

Thomas himself (in his trademark red butcher's-apron) is a much scarier monster-beneath-the-floorboards than Martin Jacques' could ever hope to be. When he loses his temper with the MC (Julian Bleach) during stand-out-song "Johnny-Head-In-Air", he casts him such a look of glaring venom that a shudder passes through the audience, quieting children and adults alike. He is also very funny. He refuses to leave the stage at the end of one song and instead keeps that final note going, rattling the rafters, and looking down like a an immoveable object at the perspiring MC who is trying, futilely, to push his great mass offstage. During the finale, he takes off his bowler hat and sings into it, moving his wrist to make his voice wah-wah like he's playing a trumpet., a fitting fanfare ending for the so-called "Elephant Terrible."

The set itself is pure Gothic fairy-tale. Weirdly diminishing perspectives, doorways as likely to disgorge puppets as people, waves as well as flames and little jets of tears shooting far enough into the audience as to reach the third row. The humour is deliciously dark. Tales of childhood doom descending on each in turn. From the boy who sucked his thumb to the one who enjoyed his cruelty to animals (MC: "I rather liked him... a boy should have a hobby after all... I know I did...") and the one who flew too high on the arm of an umbrella to the long-nailed, scruffy- locked nightmare of Shockheaded Peter himself. Literally, a fantastic night out....

-Sean Kitching-

Tool
Brixton Academy, London
13^th May 2002

Quick question. Have you ever done, like, TONS of acid, read the entire works of HP Lovecraft AND watched Audition, all in one night? No? Well, whoever sorts out Tool's visuals certainly has. So we don't have to. Let's just say "thanks" now, shall we? But of the visuals, more later.

Tool. A band I'd avoided for years, cos I thought they'd be shit, despite having had a picture of Bill Hicks as album artwork. I dunno - I think it was their audience that put me off - the big shorts thing never really worked for me. Then came Lateralus. Which was big. AND clever. So I had to check out the back catalogue, really. Which led to me being in Brixton, off my fucking face, surrounded by very tall children in very big shorts, watching a fucking amazing live band.

When they say "Nu-metal", I think they actually mean "Nu-prog" in Tool's case. Five fucking minutes of instrumental rock madness, with accompanying visuals, then Maynard deigns to appear. And spends the entire gig BEHIND the band, (though still rocking out nonetheless) caught in silhouette like some Victorian Gothic monster-child, but with the voice of a really fucked-off angel- one minute yelling, the next whispering - if he wasn't in a band, I swear he'd be locked up in someone's attic a century ago.

Music? Oh yeah, it was great. Pretty much all of Lateralus, with the notable exception of "Ticks and Leeches", which was the one I though would go down best with the big shorts crowd, and which, unsurprisingly enough, is my least favourite Tool song. Instead we get the full-on, centuries-long versions of "The Patient", "Stinkfist", and "The Grudge". Never, or at least since The Cure last went overboard on playing "A Forest" live, have a bunch of decent musicians rocked out for quite so long on a single track. And Pink Floyd don't count, `cos they're shit.

But the visuals - fuck, don't get me wrong, they rocked like bastards - but the visuals almost outdid the music. A headless man waves from the corner of a shadowy room- a skinned torso develops flaming eyes in the palms of its hands - fractals spin around eyes to let you know what Cthulhu's thinking - armless torsos kick on the floor. Eye surgery. Toilets. Just - Fuck. Fuck, man. The entire gig. Not just part of it. The whole two hours. More and more weird shit. Space full of eyes. Cosmic fucking horror.

Fundamentally Lovecraftian. Tool rock a shoggoth's ass. And that's official.

-Deuteronemu 90210, the black goat of the woods with a thousand young-

Yo La Tengo:
The Sounds Of Science
Featuring the films of Jean Painleve (1902-1989)
The Barbican, London
Saturday 20^th April 2002