Tonight is not your night if you’re colour-blind. From the
raging nuclear reds of Koko’s interior, to the beaming ginger beacon that is A
C Newman of the New Pornographers’ head through to the awesomely vivid
primary-colour patchwork of all the music on offer, it would certainly be preferable
to have all your senses available and on high alert. So the Matador bus has rolled
into town on the rarest of events these days, a label double header that glows
with camaraderie, shuffles around confidently above the benchmark and could be
turned on its head and still make complete sense. They’ve got the market cornered
here when it comes to retro geek indie pop, and while that doesn’t necessarily
mean there’s a negligible quota of style in the house tonight, it does mean that
it’s never going to be the focus, which could be seen as a welcome relief. Spoon
are so sturdy we presume they must be at least partially made of stainless
steel. They’re impressively faithful to their recorded output, a chewy Beatles
core with a shiny shrapnel coating of discord, but not to the point where it seems
like a pointless exercise. In a live setting these classic sounding songs draw
passionately deep breaths and are delivered with the skewed gait of Pavement and
Wilco’s optimistically hopeful sense of yearning. This is stuff that a CD just
can’t contain. ‘The Beast And Dragon, Adored’ is dramatically potent piano pop
balancing thrillingly on the precipice of schizophrenia and ‘Sister Jack’ is like
a champagne cork popping through an air full of innocent 60’s beat streamers with
the vague threat of doing some damage. They’re sharp, surefooted and just unpredictable
enough. Captivating like a preacher man leaning over the pulpit brandishing a
broken bottle. Following which, The New Pornographers – as laden with chunky
harmonic suss as they might be – seem up against it, perhaps they’re too straight
forward we think, perhaps lacking in the drama that made Spoon so compelling.
And temporarily they are. Until ‘The Jessica Numbers’ and ‘The Bleeding Heart
Show’, songs so valuable and sparking they probably have their own exchange rate,
light a touch paper and it’s Catherine wheels all the way to the finish line.
This is cocky music, look at my drum rolls music, admire my melodic girth music,
look how high we can pile our swaggering harmonies and how often we can twist
our drumsticks and smoke mid-tune music. And it’s obvious that it has to be, because
it isn’t glamorous in any other effortless way. Touring keyboardist Kathryn
Calder for instance looks about as frisky as Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle, but then
she does sing like a Corr and play her keys with her nose at one point, making
up for the lack of Neko Case on vocals this time around. And bassist John Collins
looks like REM’s geography teacher, avoiding the gaze of his class. But it’s all
about playing particularly to their strengths, putting a traction device behind
them and watching them fly. Song after song the pace is furious, and immaculate,
with pristine Beach Boy harmonies, chords that cut like a sickle through corn
on a balmy summer’s eve. And the spirit is, as well as cocky, vibrant, light-hearted
and expectant. In fact, so bright and colourful are their continuous successes
that you’d be forgiven for getting behind a cliché of cool and throwing on your
shades, even in tonight’s company. Relevant sites:
http://www.thenewpornographers.com/
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2006©
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| 01/06 Morning After Girls Interview
01/06 The Roger Sisters Interview
01/06 The Spinto Band Interview
01/06 The Longcut Interview
01/06 Union of Knives Interview
01/06 7/7 July Bombings London
01/06 Adem / Tunng - Live - West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
01/06 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - 40th Anniversary Deluxe CD / DVD
01/06 Broken Social Scene - London Astoria
01/06 Camden Crawl 2006
01/06 Editors - LIve - Brixton Academy
01/06 Elliott Kennedy - Song Meanings
01/06 Four Day Hombre Interview
01/06 Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel DVD
01/06 Hot Chip Live - LIve - Caberte Volatire - Edinburgh
01/06 Jackson Analogue, Digital, Newcastle
01/06 Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Beccles, Suffolk
01/06 Liam Frost - Live - Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Little Man Tate, Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Monty Python Remastered Collection
|  | 01/06 New Pornographers / Spoon - Live - London Koko
01/06 NME Shows 2006
01/06 Orange Lights - Carling Academy, Newcastle
01/06 Protokoll - Live - Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
01/06 Shout Out Louds - Live - Leeds, Cockpit
01/06 Airlines, Flights, Terror Plot July 2006
01/06 The National - Brixton Academy, London
01/06 Wireless Festival 2006
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002
January - March 2003
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November 2003
January - March 2004
April - September 2004
October - December 2004
January - March 2005
April - December 2005
January - August 2006
September - December 2006
January - September 2007
October - December 2007
January - May 2008
June-December 2008 | | |
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