Sound Engineer for the night was @emily.andrewsmusic
Seeing The Crofter’s Rights main room filled to the brim is always a privilege. An exploration of artistic expression and deeply unique talent divided across the evening. An eccentric use of dynamic and influence combined in each of the artists demonstrated nothing short of an amazingly captivating night.
Read about the artists below.
Gloom Index
When Lewis welcomes you in he sounds as if Benedict Cumberbatch was hypnotised into doing a strangely good James Earl Jones impression.
If you’ve seen ‘The Haunting Of Hill House’, you’ll understand that chested stillness found in the fear of glinted spectacles and the simple use of a harmonica; blaring melodic friction above the shocking rise of a cornering dynamic like a truck horn being blindsided with a sledgehammer.
The use of harmony to instil an interestingly magnanimous terror is tremblingly effective.
The droning friction of the guitar’s ambience pivoted against the seriously unsettling vocal harmony strengthens your consciousness like nearing a shady man in the middle of an alleyway that you have no choice but to cross.
Rosie, articulating the occult through nothing but a lap steel and sharpened fingers.
You are left to dry in the crucial theatrical elegance of a kind of cryptic immovability and once dehydrated to satisfaction you are swarmed like a plague of insects with an onslaught of distorted bass. Those drums kick into the performative awe of an obsessive percussionist, pounding worship into a drum over Rosie's siren-like wail.
The crowd has no choice but to curve their posture in compliance and obedience.
Because of the repetitive nature of the music, a few rhythmic mistakes can stick out like a sore thumb and it can really leave you vulnerable to an unforgiving crowd but the respect demanded as performers is bold. They have shaped themselves for a serious crowd who acknowledges deep thought and patience and the courage behind that is intense and immeasurably valuable.
The curated dynamics are breathtaking. At times I wonder if some of the songs could be shortened in consideration of a potentially less patient audience member, but thinking this seemed to always queue a rise in energy as if they had mapped the human attention span and found pleasure in using that patience to enhance tension and altering the experience for an audience member who doesn’t ‘get it’ is offensive to the art of this set. But I do love playing devil’s advocate.
Polished off with a playful “THEEEEEE ENDDDD” which got a really wholesome laugh from audience members.
“We’ve been Gloom Index, have fun!”
For Fans of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Cocteau Twins
Find them on Instagram or Soundcloud
Gag Salon
I’ll be frank, actually my name is Brandon so I’ll be Brandon but I’ll be honest, my first thoughts before even entering the venue were “What kind of unhinged band name is that”.
Thoughts still stand.
The organ sound has the harmonic bewildered enthusiasm of a good game of Mario Kart and the emotional strangeness of a slinky being electrically shocked.
A chanted indie mystery is sidebared by gospel funk and the pianist, vocalist and bassist barraging the PA with screams and cries. Very strange. Very cool, but very strange.
The emphatic ploys of taxingly powerful mania are existentially wowing and you are somewhat bollocked by the romantic play with Frank Sinatra being overtaken by something rather Sea Shanty-inspired. The influence of ska-punk is infused into the melancholic happiness that is drafted like a nostalgically cooled ale throughout its energetic hydration.
The suspended angst of the harmony explored through bass-driven harmonic tension and repetition is powerfully ambiguous and compliments the phonetic vocals during those hyperactive transitions.
The chaos exhibited through a genuinely deranged level of layered dissonance is incredible. The emotional dynamic refined like a concentrated medicine fondly exacerbates the fusion of insanity and obsessive hysteric looseness you find yourself entranced with.
The attitude of Interpol injected into skater kids like post-punk serrated with rock’n’roll is fantastically delivered in opposition to the circus-like whimsicality of that modulated organ sound; riveting contrast.
There is an understood rage behind the arrangement like a vengeful goldfish, post flush, who can acknowledge how hopeless his anger is.
An experience perfectly in tune with style and culture.
For Fans Of Sparks, Cardiacs and Marc Ribot
Find them on Instagram or Spotify
The New Cut
The New Cut have a sort of classic enthusiasm and respect within Bristol. Their music is simple and tasteful. It holds you in this melodic catch, reliability thickened through starching backing vocals.
The shell of skeletonised energy behind some of the monotonous melodic lines really pushes forward the existentially realised cooperation of deep thought and popular culture. There is a sense of revamping the old in a way that nostalgically proclaims the goodness of vintage expression in a modernised cast, sort of like a performatively “Never Gonna Give You Up” - Rick Astley Inspired embrasure peaking through the indie-pop.
Seeing 120 people scream “STEVEN GERARD IS MY DAD” demonstrates A) the massive control and spread of their earworms, and B) how orchestrally silly a room full of people shouting “STEVEN GERARD IS MY DAD” sounds.
It's relatively dismissive in a grounded, playful kind of way. Half pulling you in, half holding an arm to bar personal space into the front rows.
The upbeat SKA-inspired rhythm (at times) is double-bounced by the synchronicity of the Bassist and Singer jumping on stage.
There is a fantastic nonchalance to the bassist and guitarist that excels the rises in dynamics, embezzles social tension and spits out choreographed care on the Frontman’s limpidly acknowledged spotlight.
“We’ve also got merch because we’re greedy, greedy capitalists”
The inflections to be found in the performance are sincerely strange and in pursuit of a diminutive tension, the slow intent behind every movement mixes radically charging sentiment with a passionate flare for the drama of it all.
“Despite our cool nonchalant exterior, we are very grateful that you’re here”
At all times you find yourself tearing this apart, questioning if it’s irrefutably good or on-stage tomfoolery. They are totally self-aware of how popular they are and the grasp they hold over this room.
One could have guessed at an encore.
Holding the crowd silent and standing on the edge of the stage expectedly, violent patience shutting up the crowd “You’re wasting your own time here” received by a cushion of laughs, before belting the hook in a haze of performative worship and ambiguous wealth.
For Fans Of Bloc Party, The Strokes and The Monochrome Set
Find them on Instagram or Spotify
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