Interview: Niet

Originally published at kemptation.com on 31 July 2015. Words by Andrejka Zupancic

Slovenian punk group Niet was founded in late 1983 and quickly became established as one of the best bands of the then-very-strong Ljubljana hardcore scene. The band was soon to carve a unique path for itself, recording first hit Depresija (Depression) in April 1984, and following this with two summer blockbusters inPesrpektive (Perspectives) and Ritem človeštva (Rhythm of humanity).

In 2008, after it had seemed that Niet would never grace the stage again, the group (under constant pressure from the public) returned with new singer Borut Marolt (ex-Prisluhnimo tišini / Listen to the silence) and a near-perfect, original lineup in guitarists Igor Dernovšek and Robert Likar, bassist Aleš Češnovar and drummer Thomas Bergant.

Kemptation writer Andrejka Zupancic interviews guitarist and original founding member Igor Dernovšek.

Zupancic: How did you come to the decision of reforming Niet after so many years?

Dernovšek: Yes, it was long. We were active (with a two-year interruption due to the then-mandatory military service in former Yugoslavia) from the end of 1983 to 1988. After the death of singer Primož Habič (1991), we gathered again in 1993 for a few concerts, but then we disbanded for 15 years. In the meantime, our popularity grew so much that we were practically forced to return. Luckily, we found enough will and an excellent new frontman in Borut Marolt.

What kind of audience comes to your concerts? Is it mostly those from your early years or a younger generation?

Upon our return in 2008, we were somehow distributed between the old and young fans. Now our audience is dominated by youth, between 15 and 25 years old. We are a band that have equal effect on all generations and this is one of the things of which we are most proud.

The social situation is such that now you have to be a rebel.

Which songs are your audiences most excited about – new or old?

Hard to say. In addition to old classics like Lep dan za smrt (Good day to die), Depresija (Depression), Vijolice (Violets) and Februar (February), we get equal response for 90s tracks Ruski vohun (Russian spy) and Bil je maj (It was May) and for newer ones like Vsak dan se kaj lepega začne (Every day something nice starts), Dekle izza zamreženega okna (Girl behind barricaded window) and Ti in jaz in noč in večnost (You and me and night and eternity). The last two are from our most recent LP, Trinajst (Thirteen), which was released in 2010. In 2012, we made music for the highly-successful rock musical Rokovnjači (Ruffians), which was also released on CD though not aimed at such a wide audience.

Your singer Borut Marolt is formidable in carrying out his mission. How did the audience react to this addition? Were there any negative critics in connection with Primoz Habič and a new singer? It’s clear that many people consider the singer to carry the appearance of the whole group.

He [Marolt] was accepted remarkably quickly, especially by the ladies. He himself, as well as the rest of us, were of course a little nervous at the beginning, because Primoz Habič was kind of iconic in the punk scene of the 1980s. I still remember the reactions in 1993, when I replaced him myself. But time apparently heals while also exaggerating nostalgia.

What are your earliest memories of Niet’s first years in the punk era? Do you have an interesting story from concerts during that period?

Naturally, we were very young at that time: 17, 18 years old. We were angry kids, we were creating a lot of nonsense. I do not know, not all of them [the stories] are for the public. It is also the fact that we were then a part of Yugoslavia and we had a market of 20 million. There were a lot more opportunities for concerts, several of which we played abroad in France, Italy and elsewhere. We were also lucky to be able to play with some of the giants of the English and American punk scenes at that time, bands such as Angelic Upstarts and Youth Brigade as well as with the biggest names of the former-Yugoslavian rock scene, such as EKV, Zabranjeno pušenje and Električni orgazam.

Could you tell us briefly what the biggest difference in style is between your early years and now?

I do not know exactly. In the 80s, we were rapidly developing and changing from the initial hardcore, some of which we still play at concerts. In recent months, we have already come up with a unique, shall we say, Niet style with a distinctive guitar sound, catchy tunes and shadowy texts. As time wore on, we endeavoured to expand our repertoire while keeping to the same base.

How would you define yourselves in terms of commercial success, now or in the past?

Once we played for packs of beer and for travel costs on the train. Today, however, we can hire a van and get a hundred or two hundred euros per head. Although we are among the most successful and desirable rock bands in Slovenia, it is far from plausible to speak of any commercial success. Slovenia is small, its population size that of a large European city, and the country’s music scene is dominated by techno and folk. The most important things for us are that audiences respond at concerts and that we are putting out well-made LPs.

I have always been interested in your private lives – is it possible to live in Slovenia and make money only from music?

Private lives? Our drummer (Bergant) is married and has two children while Likar (guitarist) is separated, has two children and a new, younger girlfriend. The two other members of Niet are single and enjoy life. I live on maize with a girl and have a 10-year-old daughter. We are all employed, as railwayman, postman, journalist, teacher and stage worker. We are all trying to live as fully as possible; we like to drink and smoke a bit but, above all, we love music.

In the end, it’s the common people who always suffer.

Unfortunately, in Slovenia, with fewer than two million people, earning money with music can only be possible for a few folk bands, each having some festival week. The pop and rock scenes have room for only about five to ten artists – and yet even those artists are not exactly wealthy. Some of the best session musicians, and some classical musicians employed in state institutions, can live from music alone. We, of course, would very much like to live off our music, but the circle of people who still listen to rock in the broadest sense, and who are also willing to pay, is becoming smaller and smaller. Technology, the Internet, it has all played its part and so even copyright cannot exactly bring in the money.

Are you still as rebellious as you once were?

Much more so. Back then, we were more ferocious but we did not exactly know what we were resisting. Now, the social situation is such that you have to be a rebel.

In one interview, you said that “The trough has changed, the pigs remain the same”. Who particularly are you targeting with this statement?

That in power there are always ‘rotten’ people. This may be the inner circle of the former Communist Party or the present ‘left’ and ‘right’ wing politicians and their capitalist masters. In the end, it’s the common people who always suffer.

Did you ever see Laibach as your competition? What do you think of them?

Laibach had formed a few years before us. Their music was in other waters and so while we did not really socialise together, we also did not compete. I appreciate them a lot: Laibach created a completely different form of expression and dared to provoke the then-still-very-orthodox communist regime while making a huge breakthrough into the rest of the world. Respect to them!

Have you ever been politically engaged?

In the 80s, no. We were teenagers; politics did not interest – not us even a little bit. Now, politics is of great interest to us and this is reflected in some lyrics, even though our songs continue to dominate personally-expressive poetry. To some extent, politics is my professional area since I earn bread as a journalist.

Which songs from your latest album are your favourites?

Our new album, V bližini ljudi (Near people), is due for release in September. We released the first single in June, which was has engaged people and become popular. The rest of the hits are to remain a secret as we are saving them for the second, third and fourth singles.

How would you describe your musical style?

As Niet, I do not know. It’s hard to say. They [the music industry] classified us as punk, though we are not that. The energy of our music is punk-ish, but there are some obvious melodic influences and 1960s psychedelia plus some other forms of rock and alternative music.

Plans for the future? Perhaps a tour abroad?

We will soon be releasing a reprint of our first cassette from 1984, Srečna mladina (Lucky Youth). The record, which will be released on vinyl and CD by Swedish label NE Records, became one of the most re-recorded cassettes of Slovenian in history, or so people say. Most of the reprint copies will go to the US, Germany and Japan. In August, we will be mixing our new album, V bližini ljudi (Near people), ready for its release in September. A tour of Slovenia will then follow, but perhaps some concerts abroad might be possible.

If You Ever Come Back – a short story

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Originally published at kemptation.com on 29 June 2015. Words by Richard Kemp

Samantha Crain is an expert storyteller, spinning delicate yarns with her beautiful words and music. The following short story was inspired by the singer-songwriter’s latest record, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree.

It’s not until you see it laid out before you that you realise how short this life really is. Do you ever think about that?

It’s so lonely this side of the bed, staring at you through all the pipes and wires that keep your heart and lungs in check. The smell in here, I wonder, do you notice? Do you want to keel over too every time the stench of urine and medicine wafts its way up your nostrils?

The doctors have stopped visiting – the family too, the grandchildren anyway. It was when you started forgetting people’s names. Faces are one thing – your sight’s been rotten for years after all – but forgetting the names of your own grandchildren. They’d ask me why you remember one but not the other. It’s hard not to take those things personally.

Our kids still come to see you; do you see them? I’m not sure they want to be here, though. To see you like this, so weak, so vacant: their hero, defeated. Chained to a mechanical bed of plastic and rubber, machines beeping all around you as the help in white coats mill up and down, reminding us all that you’re probably not getting out this time.

What do you think? Your chances, I mean. I can’t tell anymore. I’m sorry, darling, but it’s true. You haven’t spoken in over a year, not past the beleaguered grunts and one-word commands that make no sense at all.

It’s so lonely this side of the bed. Seeing a broken man unable to hold himself up. I often wonder: what do you see? Is it the woman you loved? The one you married so young? Do you see the person who listened to Wagner with you turned all the way up? Do you see the girl you fought for all those times when the family would never approve? Do you see the one who stuck by you even when you did the stupidest things?

Or, do you see a lonely old woman who’s lost her husband to a tiny shell of a once-great man who can no longer speak? Do you see a shattered lover who has nothing left?

People come by the house every day to check on me, to see how I am. The faces keep changing, but the questions remain: can I get you anything? Let me know what you need, won’t you? I tell them all the same: I want nothing. I need nothing. All I really want is you, but then they bring me back here to talk to a statue. Do you even know I’m here? I shouldn’t say such things, but it’s hard to cope sometimes. I wish we’d seen this coming; at least we would’ve had time to decide what to do. Would you still want to be here? If it were me in bed, what then?

Instead, I stare through your eyes and feed you mashed-up apple crumble. I try to remember the man I once knew, the one I loved for so many years, but it’s hard with the smell of shit in the air and all those screams coming from down the hall. Is there anyone I could have loved more than you? I doubt it. When I’m home alone, wrapped up in bed, I try to imagine the covers are your arms, so strong, the pillow your chest. I fall asleep this way, so comfortable, so warm, so safe. I dream of our lives before the bed, a life that seems so far away now.

I’ve taken down some of the family photos – the nephews and nieces we never see – and replaced them with pictures of you and me. That time at the fairground and during the war when we first met.

I was stood on the landing the other day, staring at the photos, when a carer came by. Another new face, a short, skinny man, he said, ‘looked better today. You never know, he might be coming home soon.’ I winced at this and screamed at him, tears filling my eyes as quickly as anger filled everything else. There was no way you were ever coming back, I snarled. How dare he say that to me? The man’s eyes had widened. He was shaking. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered, and sloped off. The carer had changed by the next day.

I went back to looking at the photos, smiling in the way you always smiled at me. A love so pure, so real. I lay a hand on my hip as if it were yours and I thought about where you were now: in the mechanical bed covered in plastic, with the television blaring and food dribbling from your mouth. I thought about that and I thought about you, then I thought to myself, ‘if you ever come back, could you bring my heart?’

Samantha Crain‘s latest record, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, is released on 17th July 2015 via Full Time Hobby. Pre-order the record now.

Live review: Also Festival at Compton Verney, Warwickshire

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Originally published at kemptation.com on 26 June 2015. Words by Laura Thomas

There was a time when England was the very apotheosis of a failed state, as waves of invaders scratched a living in the ruins of an ancient civilisation. The land depopulated by famine and relentless epidemics, religious sects practiced trial by judicial torture. Public executions by burning or beheading were common. Scientists were heretics. Civil wars raged between absolute rulers, armies packed with foreign proxies. It was a haven for pirates and launched countless wars of aggression.

No one can be sure quite what triggered the quiet revolution, known as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’, that led England and Western Europe out of the dark ages. Thoughtful souls gathered in coffee shops and parlours and replaced superstition with science, bigotry with reason, and fear with knowledge. Maths, science and history; unravelling the mysteries of it all started with these small bands.

It is that salon movement, that restless curiosity, during the dawn of the age of reason, that Also festival’s curator, Helen Bagnall, sought to recreate as scientists, writers, musicians and artists all gathered in rural Warwickshire.

Also festival managed to assemble not only a guestlist of great variety and depth, but an audience to match.

Salon-London has been running for several years now, promoting events with science, art and psychology at the heart of the agenda. The movement has spread through word of mouth, eschewing commercial marketing models and defying received wisdom.

The festival that grew out of those clubs is now in its second year, with the Capability Brown-designed landscape (the original, not the 1970s art-rock band) forming the ideal framing. Infrastructure is otherwise minimal; adequate, but never falling into empty spectacle.

On Friday, the excellent Mr Heart took to the main stage. Before that, though, came Matthew Morgan with a performance heavily influenced by Bauhaus (the 1920s German art movement, not Pete Murphy’s post punk poseurs).

Mr Heart’s Tamsin A is every bad girl’s punk fantasy: dressed in black, crushed velvet and DMs, she spat and snarled as the band launched into a full-on psycho waltz. Polyrhythms lay underpinned by the powerful, lyrical percussion of Helen Suzy, Amy Spray’s nimble bass lines thudding against your teeth like a gob full of vomit. In front of them, a dozen or so toddlers sat and looked on politely, their parents standing behind the tousle-haired moppets, reminiscing about Glastonbury ’04. Muscle memory soon took over, though, as another generation lurched sheepishly into Dad Dancing.

Mr Heart put on a good show – better, in fact, than the format they adopt allows. Songs were interesting and well-constructed; A’s lyrics often hinted at subtlety (and real rage) but were masked by the over-use of loops and vocal effects and by their sometimes-clichéd style. Arrangements were complex and interesting, with changes of rhythm and tempo. There was great use of the considerable dynamic range of the band to provide light and shade. A’s guitar was underused, with solos only rare teases and promises of Tom Verlaine-type soaring, spiky arpeggios unfulfilled (lock this girl in a room with a copy of Marquee Moon). The band’s set was mostly drawn from The Unspeakable Mr Heart, which is worth a listen. Keep an eye on this band and watch them develop.

As Mr Heart were wrapping up their tight and well-received set, the Bat Walk, led by Stuart Spray, went past, down to the lake in the dusk of a midsummer’s evening. Nearby, a cocktail bar in the Black Cab Coffee Co dispensed martinis and good cheer as Marcel Lucont, the Gallic comedy creation of Alexis Dubus, took the main stage to entertain a large and enthusiastic audience and bring the evening to an end.

Saturday, the longest day, dawned with festival goers in surprisingly good shape. This is a crowd that has a pint of water before it goes to sleep, refreshingly free of the usual mobs of testosterone-driven, pissed-up wankers shouting at the moon till silly o’clock. There was one man playing pipe and tabor to welcome in the dawn, and he is recovering well following rectal surgery.

This was a day for dodging the showers and wandering from venue to venue. Down in the disco bunker (made from straw bales, no less), DJ Steve Vertigo taught kids how to modulate EQ rapidly and produce a rhythmic effect. Couples were looking over the lake sitting on wicker settees. Strangers met and chatted about the appropriate uses of post-feminist irony and the modal structure of the first Velvet Underground LP.

The main stage was packed to hear David Tong’s talk on dark matter. A dedicated knitting tent was well attended, too, and everywhere conversations were breaking out as a community started to form. The very brave went wild swimming in the lake. Few people bothered climb to the top of the hill where there was rumoured to be 3G reception.

Joanne Harris entranced the crowd with her reinvention of Loki for the modern age as a sort of cosmic Arthur Daley. Singer-songwriter Matt Maltese, only 19, showed some deft touches in composition and arrangement; a little bit predictable but plenty of time to mature. Joana Parker gave an interesting talk on her book of maps, though possibly needing a map to show when Marcos Santana and the TRIBO samba drummers were going to kick off, we lost the last ten minutes of her talk.

It became more normal to engage your neighbour as barriers came down, and that’s when things started to get really interesting. Somehow, Bagnall had assembled not just a guestlist of great variety and depth, but an audience to match. Daniel Richard’s excellent talk on his book, Great British Songwriters, grew into a discussion of the intellectual and scientific basis of sythesthesia (seeing sounds as colours), with one member of the audience, Mr Heart‘s Amy Spray, talking like a consultant neurologist. Jamie Bartlett led a passionate discussion from the floor about the Dark Net, the internet and its abusers.

Cool and beautiful, Karin Fransson mixed her own sophisticated jazz-light compositions with traditional Swedish numbers to celebrate mid-summer, generously providing a measure of the Swedish ardent spirit snaps for each audience member before leading a drinking song and having three or four glasses herself; after which point she became rather less cool if no less beautiful.

The site was abuzz during the afternoon from those who had attended musical director Juliet Russell’s workshop and choir that morning. The main stage was packed for her show for which she had expected maybe a dozen people at most; in the end, 40 festival goers packed themselves in front of the stage to watch Russell give a performance of spine-tingling intensity and passion.

Also is a Marmite festival: you’ll either love it or hate it. If your idea of a good time is to get wankered on supermarket vodka to a deafening soundtrack of cock-rock bands and wake up in your tent covered in mud with a trainee accountant from Basingstoke snoring in your ear, then this festival is not for you, look away now.

Also is one of the few festivals to take genuine risks in pursuit of its aims; it has a soul and a mission and a confidence that embraces the chance of ridicule. This is a festival with no barriers between performers and punters. Artists were there as facilitators rather than entertainers, educators and not stars. The audience comprised poets and scientists, doctors and dreamers, teachers and dozens and dozens of individuals from all walks of life who came away with renewed belief in their own intellect and creativity, with more hope and less fear.

In Juliet Russell’s own words:

“Sometimes we need reminding

To take beauty where we find it

I am you and you are me

And my voice lifts my soul

And I set my spirit free.”

At the climax of the number, led by Russell and the massed choir, festival director Helen Bagnall gave a little jump, fist pumping the air. Agreed, Helen. You smashed it. Well done.

Check www.salon-london.com for more information on the Salon movement.

Live review: Lucy Anne Sale at The Tree House Bookshop

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Originally published at kemptation.com on 10 June 2015. Words by Laura Thomas

A trend in recent years has seen many artists eschewing traditional gig venues – with their sticky carpets, overpriced drinks, broken PAs and ear-bleeding volumes – for acoustic gigs in informal venues, sheds, people’s front rooms (crammed onto the sofa with the TV pushed into a corner), kitchens…and bookshops. A whole circuit of community bookshops is springing up as the thoughtful, literate community reject Amazon and Kindle to make community and gather in a circle of light with fellow souls.

The beautiful and enigmatic Sale has been a poorly kept secret for some years now

The Tree House Bookshop in Kenilworth is typical. Tucked away in this hidden gem of a middle-England town, its proprietor, the redoubtable Victoria Meir, provides and oasis of calm in a hectic world. There are books, many books. There is cake, and tea and coffee and sometimes homemade biscuits. And on Friday, local legend Lucy Anne Sale came and brought strawberries and chocolate. The plan was to video a low key acoustic set; she was baffled to find the tiny venue packed in anticipation of her appearance.

The beautiful and enigmatic Sale has been a poorly kept secret for some years now, but somehow she has managed to avoid the mass popularity her talent demands despite touring with Kelly Joe Philips, performing sets at Glastonbury and the Union Chapel and boasting collaborations with Devon Sproule and Rachel Ries.

Sale quickly establishes an easy rapport with her audience, sitting slightly hunched over her nylon strung guitar, her smoky, jazz-infused vocals flowing over a soundscape of chords and runs. A classically-trained composer, Sale has devised her own system on the guitar, refraining from hackneyed three-chord tricks. After playing a couple of numbers solo, she brings on vocalists Lizzie Coughlan and Liz Crowley.

Songs like The Beatles (about a Facebook stalker) and the bitterly acerbic Where Does all the Money Go? show the trio’s unique vocal stylings. These are no mere backing singers; the three voices syncopate against one another and the jagged polyrhythms of Sale’s guitar, harmonic intervals and breaks unexpected and glorious in their originality, reflecting hours in the practice room and the considerable skills of Coughlan and Crowley as well as the classical training of Sale. The arrangements resemble a string quartet, with the guitar taking the part of the cello and three voices driving rhythm, melody and harmony into one glorious whole. Or, as one wag put it, ‘like the Andrews Sisters on acid.’

Sale’s lyrics are a mixture of the enigmatic and the commonplace: the homespun themes of Hurry, Quickly merging with displays of breath-taking vulnerability on Fooled by the Minor Key or Slow Motion Heart.

Material is drawn from her privately-released second album Sonomama and her yet-to-be-recorded new album on which Sale promises string arrangements and is looking for crowdfunding to try and get the project off the ground. Check her out at www.lucyannesale.com and make your pledge.

Lucy Anne Sale has a busy summer coming up, and the gig with full band at the Bridge House Theatre on 26^th July (as part of Warwick Folk Festival) is one not to miss.

Live review: Love Saves The Day 2015

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Originally published at kemptation.com on 28 May 2015. Words by Richard Kemp

Another year, another venue, the same zesty mantra: Love Saves The Day. Now in its fourth year, the Bristol-based festival for all things electronic, hip-hop, dub and drum ‘n’ bass returned with a glittering, all-star lineup, which included the likes of Groove Armada, Roni Size, Grandmaster Flash, Jessie Ware, My Nu Leng and Four Tet. There was worry of it being a rain-drenched slopfest this year, but the event, moved to new location Eastville Park, proved itself a veritable suntrap, the sun’s dazzling rays roasting the heads of anyone who had neglected to bring a hat (or at least a welder’s helmet like one forward-thinking party-goer).

Walking through the gates of Love Saves The Day (LSTD) on Saturday was an instant shot to the senses: multi-coloured balloons and bunting decked the vicinity, as did pillars painted shocking pink, a ferris wheel, an old-style horse carrousel and a giant inflatable chapel (devoted, of course, to dance and spur-of-the-moment marriages of convenience). There was even hula hooping all day long, a big cuddly playpen for the kiddies (most of whom were all wearing construction-site ear mufflers) and an enormous robot structure under which sat a full-size wrestling ring dedicated to the many high-octane dance-offs that would ensue all weekend. There was no way around it: LSTD was a colossal adventure theme park built specifically for adults; adults who had all come to get drunk on dance and high on love.

Eastville Park seemed the perfect setting for such an event: a great rolling hill of lush green played below a wondrous blue sky that gave way to nine different stages, each one decked out more majestically than the last. The gurning and face chewing started early here, with many punters running themselves into the ground unable to calm their chemical jitters. A good thing there was so much to keep people active, then, from the aforementioned dance-off wrestling ring to the Bump Roller Disco arena, which featured a proper ‘90s-style roller disco but without the skin-crawlingly bad commercial radio music. Instead, the skating was soundtracked by live DJs all weekend (the likes of Dirty Thoughts, Lee Pattison and Hot Buttered Soul to the rescue). The hulahooping stand encouraged much entertainment, too, not just for the people doing it but for those watching who got to see numerous fest-goers, clueless of what to do with their bodies, spend 20 minutes simply gyrating at thin air – this, of course, at a dance music festival, where that sort of behaviour is nigh-on compulsory!

It was nothing short of impressive to see how much effort each company had gone to in order to set up their stage for just two days of partying. The robot above the dance-off ring was staggering in its size while even the tiny (relatively so) Cocktails and Dreams stage was covered in bamboo canes, floral strings and juxtaposed with a full-size clamshell for any festival mermaids who wanted to climb inside and bob away to their own meditative beat. Every stage was dressed to the nines in rave colours – pinks, yellows, greens – even the bazaar burst with colour.

And then, of course, there was the music. Hard to avoid it, really: thunderous basslines collided into one another like confused bulls in heat as DJs in every corner of the park threatened to drop any beat they were currently holding, resulting in screams of euphoria from the audience when they finally did so. People piled into every tent, venue and stage, excited for everything around them, though, unlike your average rock or pop festival, there was actually room to move. Even at the front of each stage, where a crowd might normally concentrate most of its energy, there was plenty of space to flail away. Perhaps this is the nature of electronic shows: after all, you’re there to get wild and have a good time, not necessarily stare wide-eyed at the band on stage while yelling the lyrics to every song in your neighbour’s ear. There was never any reason for artists to introduce themselves either since, for most of the time, people weren’t paying that much attention anyway. They were more interested in exploring and marvelling at their own bodies as the chemical-induced imbalances began to kick in.

This fourth year of LSTD had plenty of big-name acts to draw in crowds – your Groove Armadas, Roni Sizes and Azealia Bankses – but there was a mass of new music to discover, too. The Just Jack stage played host to a great many contenders, from funky disco outfit Soundstream to an entire Sunday curated by Teachings in Dub, which included an especially chilled set from Channel One. The Cloud 9 stage, meanwhile, boasted some of the strongest acts of the weekend, including Gorgon City, My Nu Leng and the soon-to-be-huge Tourist. Pop sensations Rae Morris and Indiana urged Saturday’s main stage crowd together early, both backed up by full bands to prove you didn’t need tables of decks and MacBooks to get a gig here while Futureboogie brought a bevvy of delectable delights to the Apocalypso stage in the forms of Maxxi Soundsystem and Ame, among others. Crack Magazine, ever the purveyors of quality music you wish you were cool enough to have found on your own, did not disappoint with a stellar cast of heavyweight beatsmiths, including Floating Points, Daniel Avery and bedroom nerd / heartthrob Four Tet. The London DJ graced the Paradiso tent at 9pm to rapturous applause and hollers from a crowd that could not have been happier to see him. He repaid the respect by ending his two-hour set with a couple of dub-fused numbers to mollify the Bristol locals. The set seemed to end rather abruptly at this point, though, as if the DJ hadn’t completely thought it through. No matter, though, as the LSTD audience had moved on to exploring the inner workings of their own legs by this point. They were just happy to have something to move to as they fell deeper into their Four Tet vortex (fourtex?).

Live review: Django Django at O2 Academy, Bristol

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Originally published at kemptation.com on 25 May 2015. Words by Lumina Kemp

Not much is generally to be expected of a Thursday night show – especially for a band that hasn’t been on tour for a couple of years. They could be rusty or shy, and it being a school night it’s generally best not to hope for much. But tonight seemed to have a buzz about it and Bristol’s O2 Academy was pleasantly full with a patient flock of those in the know. Tonight, the stage was set for Django Django, with a backdrop of white drapes and screens creating a sharp contrast to a collection of instruments that also patiently awaited the show to begin. The lights flickered off and on, as if a playful child had seized control of the switch, while the lads arrived onstage dressed in smart, white-and-black-striped, buttoned-up shirts. They looked like the kind of boys you’d not give a second thought to having over for tea with your nan: polite and modest, but with an underpinning of immense and mysterious talent.

If you weren’t taken away with it all, you must have checked your pulse at the door

The fourpiece began gently, sleepily, with soft harmonies and almost ominous tones; their opening number sounded akin to the credits for an early ‘80s video game before swelling into a huge, orchestrated movie score for an unknown epic Western and later spiralling into an intergalactic drama. Songs like Waveforms and First Light were held together with a driving beat that kept hips a-boppin’ and heads a-rockin’. It was clear from the onset that they were going to give it their all tonight. Lead singer/guitarist Vincent Neff never took a shortcut on vocals, playing a whole array of extra bits and bobs; more fun was to be had as songs expanded and were improvised on the spot, spreading out the goodness like butter on toast.

As the Bristol crowd loosened up, they grew hungry for more of this cosmic stew of indie-styled, ancient surfer rock. No worries if you forgot to take your drugs, though, as the boys provided all the elements to send you to outer space and back. It was like watching a live art film unfold in real time: strobe lights and a laser show complimented their complex and seamless changing and weaving melodies. Song after song flooded the room with unpredictable, and yet perfectly aligned, changes, woven tightly and yet given enough room to roam and explore.

Halfway through the show, the quartet invited saxophonist James Murray to come up and join them, and together the now-quintet continued setting sail. They were obviously enjoying a bit of play with the audience, at one point having everyone get down on the floor only to rise back up with the beat as Wor sent the crowd completely off their feet – not even the sticky beer glue of O2 Academy’s dance floor could keep them down. So high off the rhythm were the crowd, instead of cheering for an encore, they belted out their own rendition of Wor so the boys could return to a serenade of their own tune.

By the end, Django Django had managed to strap the entire crowd into their psychedelic, interstellar spaceship destined for a better world; a world where never-ending, driving beats sync with your heart and stomping feet. Where surfer rock dines with sprawling Western scores and float together through a sea of harmoniously dreamy vocals. If you weren’t taken away with it all, you must have checked your pulse at the door.