Shit & Shine - ICA, London, 5 November 2010

Shit & Shine are performing as part of the ICA’s Rhythm Section festival.

Shit & Shine begin quietly. Playing some wistful, Americana whimsy. The dreamy tone is counter-pointed by the singer who in an exaggerated English accent recounts an elaborately mundane tale.

I wonder if they’re playing a game of double bluff. I keep expecting them to crank up the tempo. But they maintain their genteel pace. When are they going to cut loose? Perhaps they’re not going to. Maybe they’ve tired of the drum thunder.

Shit & Shine finish teasing us. They shift up a couple of gears. The guitarists switch to keyboards adding electronic swooshes. The five drummers synchronise.

And I am underwhelmed.

It’s not a feeling you expect to have when you go to see such a finely honed rhythm assault unit. The beat feels pedestrian. It lacks the confrontational, clattering, edge when Shit & Shine are at their most visceral.

I find myself slowly numbed by their sound. Bored even.

But that is just a gateway through which I have to travel. I reach some kind of Zen state. The seemingly dull rhythm is now infecting my mind. My perceptions have been transformed. Conscious thoughts have fallen away. There is only the present and the relentless rhythm.

I notice that one of the band is having problems with his keyboard. Suddenly it appears above his head broken into pieces. Nothing it seems will be granted mercy.

Deprived of his instrument he switches back to guitar, riffing in time with the drummers. The singer is no longer pretending to be Noel Coward. His hectoring distorted vocals recall PiL. It’s exhilarating. Purifying. I have been pummelled into submission. Shit & Shine have defeated me again.

Preferred drink: Sussex Best Bitter

Part Chimp | That Fucking Tank | Monnocle | Hired Geek All Dayer - The Victoria, London, 4 September 2010

I oversleep and wrongly assume that nothing much will happen at the Hired Geek all-dayer before 4pm. That’s why I miss the first two acts and find that Marilyn Rambo are already playing.

The French guitar drums duo have set up in the middle of the pub. The handful of audience members crowd round. The floor is sticky, and the air hot and stuffy. I think I can smell the band sweating.

Marilyn Rambo’s meaty, muscular, math-rock slowly builds an audience. It’s not revolutionary but the guitarist shifts tones and riffs that stop your mind spiralling off. Mid-set the guitarist string breaks and the drummer freestyles while he waits for repairs to be completed. They end with their best song with a riff like a klaxon. As the band clear their gear away a barman sprays air freshener across the room.

I’m sure I’ve seen Please play before. I’ve only vague recollections though and if my memory is right I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe my recall and opinion are both unreliable because Please are mightily enjoyable. Jaunty, punk-y, riffery, like the chaotic, frenetic, musical accompaniment to a circus. Rhythms come in short, choppy, bursts, like clowns throwing themselves into another choreographed pratfall. After half an hour they pack up their tents and move to another town.

Kogumaza are as Japanese as a Matsui tv. They are instead a slow motion Black Sabbath trying to play acid rock. Longeurs, of dirge-y, down tuned, psych, snake, sinewy, unhurried paths into that bit of your brain where important thoughts escape to.

Change of pace. One Unique Signal don’t bother with the clutch and just crank things straight into fifth. We get one, long, unending, fuzzed-out, guitar solo. Vocals are minimal, probably because it gets in they way playing another distorted, effects drenched guitar lead. Imagine sitting with your old tape deck and filling a TDK 90 with all the white-outs and wig-outs of your favourite distorto-rock bands. Maybe you don’t need to imagine this. Maybe you used to do this.
What should you expect from three French men wearing dresses? The answer, I have learnt, is post-hardcore. Monnocle blaze through their set like watching a flame burn along a gunpowder trail. Only one that doesn’t end in a explosion. That would be far too easy. Far harder to make that trail go round and round circles and leave you wondering when.

On the merch table That Fucking Tank have boldly labelled one of their Cds with the question, “do you remember when Shellac were good?” I’m not sure they’re that good, but they don’t embarrass themselves with the claim. Tight, arid, jagged, riffs, utilising repetition, before jack knifing into a new groove.

Whilst the previous bands have been escalating hostilities it’s now time to bring out the heavy artillery. Part Chimp move onto the stage. In their hands rock becomes rubble. Like a tank crashing through brick wall they swiftly overwhelm their opponents with a frontal assault of massive overkill. Their amps deliver their payload of heavy, buried in the red, richter scale redefining, guitar. If I was General Kong, plummeting towards my target side astride a nuclear bomb, then Bringbackthesound would be my sound track to my happy death and global oblivion.

Prefered drink: Young's Double Chocolate Stout