February, and back home at the Green Door Store. What an awful shitty stormy night, shortly after I arrived the rain started and boy it didn’t let up. I’m amazed anybody made it out at all, so the fact we had a decent turnout was a real bonus – thanks to everyone who came down.
Anormals
Starting the evening off with an epic hour long set, Anormals, GotoR the guitarist sidekick from Asem along with Boris Nasa his spar from the old country, got to work to cover all the old ground of their history: techno sparseness, pounding kicks, grinding metal riffs, delicate guitar arpeggios, vocal samples, primary coloured bunny visuals and lush forests. At some point I was in the bar and the fire alarm went off (dust in the detector, it seems), no-one win the main room noticed – it was that kind of set, and I don’t think anybody was about to stand outside.
Mechanical Elephant
Making their Brighton début we had Mechanical Elephant, recently moved from Canterbury. Live drums and vocals; both processed and played straight. Starting with fairly straight drums and electronica as the set progresses everything became mutated, the drums more processed and less straightforward, the singing more elliptical the electronic voices more alarming and everything stranger and more spooky. Excellent and nowhere near long enough.
Shabash
Completing the evening Shabash was down from Russia via London with her violin and pedals. No visuals, just a plain white light and in she goes, a drone into the pedals and a build and a melody and a paring down and a plucked sequence looped and a different drone and another melody and a breakdown… It sounds easy and familiar in bald text but intricate and alluring in the presence. A proper journey in a set and again – Far Too Short. I do love feeling that more is required really, but trains have to be caught and it’s damn well raining again.