Lo Fidelity Allstars at London Cargo
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LO-FIDELITY ALL STARS London, Cargo, 18.10.01

With a new single, 'Lo Fi's In Ibiza' to plug the not all late 90's Brighton Retro All Stars are grabbing beats and jumping right on top of them. James Berry explains.

22/10/01

LO-FIDELITY ALL STARS

Back in August on a dismally gray Saturday afternoon in a pathetically populated field in Leeds, former big-beat anti-heroes the Lo Fi Allstars were beginning to look like they'd been burning the candle both ends for way too long, leaving themselves with little more than a damp match and a thinning pile of wax to fiddle with. They were still playing like it was 2am eternally, but sat on a grassy bank chewing overpriced festival Pot Noodle & trying to shift a rapidly gestating hangover, squinting at the stage they looked like no more than last night's dance tent leftovers still going, fuelled by bad chemicals and snakebite. In retrospect putting them on the mammoth main stage in daylight was akin to Aphex Twin hiring himself out for kids parties and weddings in full silicone enhanced 'Windowlicker' drag, only patently less dramatic. Like an ugly fish out of water there maybe, but crow-barred into a trendy, rammed railway arch in East London they're back blowing bubbles and flapping their awkwardly shaped fins again like they could still become dance music's Oasis any day now.

The Wrecked Train is of course long gone (I mean, the Wrecked who?) and with a rotating front-goon, alternating between bassist The One Man Crowd Called Gentile (aka Andrew Dickinson in his usual crusty camouflage clobber) and DJ grease monkey the Albino Priest (aka Phil Ward), they have more than enough gurning underdog, rock icon wannabe blood in the veins to go around. You do have to wonder what they think they see when they look in the mirror though. Obviously being a fair few degrees off bona fide rock star status the vocoder is a bit of a lifeline and on tunes like last autumn's comeback-of-sorts single 'The All, The All' and teetering, pulsating highlight amongst highlights 'Disco Machine Gun' they do what over recent years has seemed nigh on impossible. That is to make the vocoder a viable, dangerous sounding and almost inventive option once again.

But how to survive in the harsher reality of the post Skint Records explosion, without Bentley to better, and at least without Christopher Walken to glamorize your videos and win you awards? The Lo Fi battle plan seems to just be to put their heads down, hit the accelerator and wait for the g-force to kick in. Throbbing new single 'Lo Fi's In Ibiza', tacky title aside, is a uber-potent suckerpunch diluting all they've covered before (the solid beats, the arching spine-rippling intestine-churning synth bass hooks and an ever-rising atmosphere) and downing it straight with a chaser. And as if to prove that they can do it all, or maybe to show that if worst comes to worst they could actually take wedding bookings, another new song joins chill out staple 'Blisters On My Brain' for a mid set epic cabaret style chill-out that very nearly has Crud reaching for its lighter. And if you're still looking for proof, one word - 'Battleflag', still the most incredible headfuck. Not at all seeming like late 90s Brighton retro-fair, they're grabbing beats and jumping right on top of 'em. Now, if they'd just pull their fingers out with that album.

James Berry for Crud Magazine© 2001

 
 
 
 

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