From John Braine Sent Sun, Jul 5th 1998, 11:01
From John Braine Sent Sun, Jul 5th 1998, 11:01
First up was invisible armies, I'd never checked these out before on record or live and had no idea Ireland was outputting talent this good, well impressed. ( currently downloading an mp3 from http://www.iol.ie/~murraycp/invisarm.html if you want to check them out). A fine melting pot of hip hop, electro, breakbeats, obscure samples and tech noise, two electric guitars onstage tweaked into barely recognizable sounds from the rock twang we're used to and three tech-bods doing the tweaking. The slam boys up next, Stuart Mcmillan continued the funky beats with some fine electro from phreax and the like. Half an hour later he was back to the usual 4/4 stomping, which I usually enjoy from him but wasn't in the mood for tonight, the mood already being set with the funky stuff. Kept with it after an hour of beats but I yearned for a string or a smidgeon of soul, anything. Finally he let Mrs anna log creep atop those bare beats which kept me on the floor. Autechre next, have to admit I've not heard a load of, only got two records but those fucked up, off kilter crunchy beats were exactly what I needed. This IS dance music (even if some of the ken & Barbie fluffy bra brigade did look around in dismay ). Neither playing live or really Dj'ing... didn't play any records ... just plugged in a minidisc or something and pressed play, didn't even know this until a friend told me later though. Finished off with a mad fast semi drum & bass monster before Andy Weatherall got on. Back to the stompers, we left, I think I'm getting past my sell-by-date. Seeyez, John