Review: Benin City – Wha Gwan

Much like the oft-bewildering vagaries of modern life in the metropolis from which the trio hail, London’s Benin City are a mixture of gloss and grit. Their fresh fusion of percussive electro and sparse soul is captured on new single ‘Wha Gwan’, a regretful lament of friendship gone sour, which finds Joshua Idehen’s rapid urban patter flowering into song over the expansive chorus – “We used to start/Fires in the park, you and I” – while, underneath, Theo Buckingham’s fluid rhythms embellish a metronomic pulse that anchors some weighty synth chords. As the track builds, Tom Leaper’s horn riff creeps in almost unnoticed, until its sombre melody becomes the focal point of the coda, and the listener is left wondering whether this is some new take on dubstep, trip hop or even 21st-century jazz, yet never doubting that ‘Wha Gwan’ is a truly original arrival, a new sound of the contemporary capital.

‘Wha Gwan’ is released via Audio Doughnuts on 7 October.

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Review: Malpas - Promise EP

Ambient Birmingham duo Malpas have a fancy for melding their sequences and loops with traditionally bucolic stringed instruments. You might fear this would result in an even-more lightweight take on the fragility that marks much British indie-electronica. Fortunately, this songwriter/producer pairing are deft enough to create a densely textured whole from their diverse instrumental parts, interweaving folksy melodies and flabby synth swells to pack quite the emotional punch. Sure, there’s a vulnerability to the four songs on Malpas’ debut EP, but it’s the wavering upper-register vocal that delivers it, granting an aptly plaintive edge to the “When Will You Return To Me?” refrain of lead track ‘Charlemagne’. Commencing with a choppy mandolin overlain with acoustic arpeggios, then segueing into a wobbly dubstep base, ‘Charlemagne’ soon settles into the poppiest and most radio-friendly track here, if the least interesting. Better the catchy, bittersweet ‘Here Comes The Rain’, an absorbing three-minute mashup of new-folk and sub-bass, while ‘Us Afloat’ steadily crescendos from gentle pizzicato to obese digital outro, turning the mournful “I Can’t be Trusted” lyric on its head. It’s ‘Promise’, with its haunting vocal and stunted skiffle groove that really impresses, though, its blissful choral progression all too fleeting, a near intangible few bars of loveliness that demands repeat due to its very brevity. Fragile, yes, but disarmingly so.

‘Promise’ is released via Killing Moon on 23 September.

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Review: Animal Noise + Felix Hagan & The Family - The Finsbury 28/6/13

Time was when the Glastonbury Festival was at the heart of the British counterculture, and time was when The Rolling Stones at least pretended to be. So on a weekend when the two came together for a televised event that was about as insurrectionary as the Jubilee flotilla, it was good to find that rock’n’roll can still be at its edgiest and most electrifying at the roots.

Particularly when the sounds are emanating from a group as lithe as Animal Noise, an Essex trio whose explosive rifforama powered a breathless opening segment of a Finsbury set built on furious chops and brutal beats somewhat comparable to Queens of the Stone Age - and this bunch (blond, basin-haired singer-guitarist; stoner-rock rhythm section) had the musical nous to pull it off. As the set progressed, so did Animal Noise’s flexibility, their influences diversifying as the giant of a bassist strummed, slapped and flicked at his fretboard, while the guitarist switched from chorused finger-picking to uptempo off-beat skank, linking with the tattoo-torsoed sticksman for the kind of intuitive musical interplay that sometimes only stripped-down three-pieces seem able to convey. But among all the stomping grooves and pulsing head-shakers, do the band have the hooks, the pop sensibility to pull out truly enduring tunes? The euphoric ‘Bag Of Bones’ certainly suggested they do. Crafted on to a rhythm so fresh it was verging on hardcore highlife, it was a jaw-dropping finale.

So how do you follow a band like that? Well, how about a tongue-in-cheek, theatrical Rocky Horror-tinged show from a two-tiered septet whose near-anonymous instrumentalists supply the slick foundation for a self-deprecating, classically voiced bandleader to croon operatic innuendo-laden vignettes while assisted by a pair of glamorous gothic sirens who perform melodramatic choreography and instigate audience participation that culminates in jumping into the crowd to initiate a wild, climactic dance-off? Phew. That was how Felix Hagan & The Family chose to do it, anyway. And if their performance art-cum-music-hall-revue-cum-Eric-Idleish-surrealism seemed a little incongruous on the Finsbury stage at times, it was no less entertaining for it. Just the sort of thing you could imagine going down a storm in a marquee at an innovative festival, perhaps. Eat that, Glasto.

Follow Nick Mee on Twitter: @nickjmee

Review: Coco & The Butterfields Live - The Finsbury - 23/6/2013

"CoCo And The Butterfields will amaze you with their innovative "Fip Fok"

More often than not music genres cross path and when it happens new genres come to life. Yesterday I was at one of these junctions when, for the first time, I assisted at the CoCo And The Butterfields performance, live at The Finsbury Pub.

The band - made up by five elements but joined on stage by a trombone and a trumpets specially for the occasion – manage to converge several sounds and influences. They all brought their personal experiences (which span country, folk, hip hop, r&b) and gave life to a distinctive sound.

The band opened with a cover of Whitney Houston's 'I will always love you' sung by Dulcima's low and seductive voice; she was gradually joined by the rest of the instruments and when the song got to its zenith, it broke into a fast-pace folk ballad that had the unfortunate side effect of suffocating the female and male vocals.

'Astronaut' was a gentle and delicate love song that kicked in the second half, spiced up with a hint of jazz. 'Scarecrow' came next; the song opened with a raspy violin before bursting into a fast country ballad. The band also presented their latest single 'Warriors' a choral song that resounded epic with trombone and trumpets joining the performance, before closing with a cover of Florida's 'Low' revisited in a reggae key.

On the stage, the band was possessed by the rhythm of the music, dancing and thumping against the floor - the excited crowd couldn't help but clap along.

There is a rough quality about the sound of CoCo And The Butterfields; it's not easy to merge so many different styles, but this band seems to know how to make it work. There are few edges to refine and adjust, but it'll be interesting to watch more closely the evolution of this unique project.

Review: Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra Live - The Finsbury 9/6/2013

"Johnny Parry nails the perfect symphony, a must see band of 2013"

When Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra got up on the stage of The Finsbury, they were crammed on a relatively small space. It was eight of them possessing keyboards, violins and double bass to name a few. As Johnny Parry said; it was only the stripped version of the Orchestra that usually counts 30 elements.

The band opened with 'Sweet Nothings' from their second album Song without a purpose; Parry's clear and warm voice led off, accompanied by the astounding voice of the soprano. From there they were slowly joined by all the instruments on hand, being introduced one at a time. When they retracted, the song ended up with a light touch on the keyboard.

'God loves me' hit the crowd like a punch, unlike the other songs that started slow and then built up, this one started at full voice. There was a nice contrast between Parry's deep voice, and the soprano warbling in the back.

Throughout the whole performance there was a strict link between the song played and the images being projected on the screen behind the band. When the orchestra played 'Rebuild It Piece By Piece', images taken from comic books worked as captions relevant to the song and, inside the balloons, it was possible to read the lyrics. Parry's mesmerizing voice was the main character of the performance, with the instruments building around him and originating a sense of grandeur.

Johnny Parry Chamber Orchestra closed with another tune from Song without a purpose; 'Love Song'. As the title suggested it was indeed a song about love but not in a traditional way. The grandeur of the music left place to lyrics that were an ode to life and love. Love for the countryside, for home, for personal ghosts, demons, love for God. In the end the song reached its zenith and I couldn't help feeling I was watching live - for the first time - the execution of a symphony.

Brothers Rasputin // The 150 Friends Club - The Finsbury - 13/6/13

Sporting a pork-pie hat and precision moustache, Brothers Rasputin’s hyperactive frontman left his memorably psychotic mark on the Finsbury’s front-of-house last Thursday. Often employing a vocal upper-register that bordered on a squeal, any conventional pop prose was interspersed with morally questionable hooks like ‘I’m gonna make your fuckin’ nose bleed’. This bipolar Bee-Gee ensnared members of the audience as he swang from lover (pointing and gyrating in one woman’s direction) to fighter (leaping off stage mid-song to scream in another’s face). It was, of course, extremely funny, although his coiled unpredictability held the crowd in a certain uneasy flux. None of it would have worked if the band couldn’t hold their own, but Brothers Rasputin are as slick a funk-rock trio as you could wish for - sharing some space and feel with the likes of Cake - their sound fleshed out not by horns and percussion but by our man’s judicious use of a loop pedal on both his versatile voice and guitar. Ticking the box for genuine comedic and musical entertainment in one ain’t easy, but Brothers Rasputin pull it off. Go see – just be a little careful where you stand.

150 Friends Club also appeared to be having plenty of fun, and were certainly exploring some rarely chartered territory. Their stunning dexterity facilitated a fusion of original time signatures, key changes and rhythmic patterns. Accents and stresses were placed where least expected, sometimes losing the listener amid a forest of musical smarts, only to deliver them, blinking, back to a comfortably familiar refrain by song’s end. A mid-set lull established that the lyrical plot-lines were as clever-clever as the rest of the band’s contributions, but it was during the more dynamic tunes that you could really  appreciate how good the quartet were, driven by a belter of a drummer and peaking on the bouncing jazz-rock-prog of ‘Hoonanaparka’. A little self-indulgent, perhaps? Sure, but the group’s obvious enjoyment of their craft was infectious and they went down a storm.