chrisso blackmore the bouncer looked at the huge queue stretching outside the leeds cockpit and said, “fuck me, are they any good, this lot? they don’t even sing, y’ know, just heard ’em soundchecking”. i shrugged my shoulders and for one fleeting moment thought about asking him to write this review…
an expectant cockpit welcomed canadians ‘fly pan am’ to the stage but rather than standing up and pointing out the emergency exits, they sat down and began knocking out some solid instrumentals (he was right, that bouncer) which veered from joy divisionland through to ‘systems’ music and off into fridge territory. very ‘post-rock’ which in my experience tends to mean that just occasionally, the music takes off and leaves you spinning. but only occasionally. the rest of the time, ‘fly pan am’ veered dangerously close to appealing more to the intellect than to the emotions, more to the head than to the heart. this can lead to the criticism ‘arty bollocks’ (for example, they were intent on separating their songs with ambient noise which just didn’t work). but if you were to ask me whether i would fly pan am again, i probably would, if only for those few moments of clarity…
judging by his earlier comment, the bouncer definitely hadn’t heard ‘sigur ros’ and if you haven’t, chances are you will pretty soon. another serious fourpiece, they are fronted by one of the more amazing pairs of lungs you’ll hear this year. ok, they’re from iceland but spare me the puffin jokes and bjork references. these guys produce supernaturally beautiful guitar music which put me in mind of ‘boards of canada’ (there’s a theme developing here) due to its stunning simplicity. and then, the lead singer opened up like a choirboy on steroids. in the awkward silences between songs, one of the crowd kept feeling moved to shout out “shit hot!” (another potential reviewer, methinks). some people will find that voice overpowering but anything that can kick ass like on their penultimate song ‘svefn-g-englar’ is ok by me. check out the forthcoming ep for further evidence. all the vocals are in icelandic and completely unintelligible, though i could have sworn that he kept repeating ‘in a loofa’ at one stage.
which doesn’t lead me neatly on to ‘godspeed you black emperor!’ who are from, yes, you guessed it, canada. they took to the tiny stage in shifts, there being nine of them. they were in serious danger of being overshadowed by sigur ros but gave a good account of themselves. to hypnotically strange video loops, they built simple guitar lines into massive walls of sound. again, the vocals were absent but the intensity of the experience would have rendered them obsolete in any case. ten-minute epic followed ten-minute epic which maybe became a bit predictable as time wore on. but the two drummers, two bassists, cellist, violinist and four guitarists (no, wait, that makes ten) kept driving on towards some kind of climax which duly arrived, again and again. the cockpit was suitably impressed.
so, tonight, canada ruled the airwaves and how often is it that you can say that?
esbs
says:chrisso blackmore
the bouncer looked at the huge queue stretching outside the leeds cockpit and said, “fuck me, are they any good, this lot? they don’t even sing, y’ know, just heard ’em soundchecking”. i shrugged my shoulders and for one fleeting moment thought about asking him to write this review…
an expectant cockpit welcomed canadians ‘fly pan am’ to the stage but rather than standing up and pointing out the emergency exits, they sat down and began knocking out some solid instrumentals (he was right, that bouncer) which veered from joy divisionland through to ‘systems’ music and off into fridge territory. very ‘post-rock’ which in my experience tends to mean that just occasionally, the music takes off and leaves you spinning. but only occasionally. the rest of the time, ‘fly pan am’ veered dangerously close to appealing more to the intellect than to the emotions, more to the head than to the heart. this can lead to the criticism ‘arty bollocks’ (for example, they were intent on separating their songs with ambient noise which just didn’t work). but if you were to ask me whether i would fly pan am again, i probably would, if only for those few moments of clarity…
judging by his earlier comment, the bouncer definitely hadn’t heard ‘sigur ros’ and if you haven’t, chances are you will pretty soon. another serious fourpiece, they are fronted by one of the more amazing pairs of lungs you’ll hear this year. ok, they’re from iceland but spare me the puffin jokes and bjork references. these guys produce supernaturally beautiful guitar music which put me in mind of ‘boards of canada’ (there’s a theme developing here) due to its stunning simplicity. and then, the lead singer opened up like a choirboy on steroids. in the awkward silences between songs, one of the crowd kept feeling moved to shout out “shit hot!” (another potential reviewer, methinks). some people will find that voice overpowering but anything that can kick ass like on their penultimate song ‘svefn-g-englar’ is ok by me. check out the forthcoming ep for further evidence. all the vocals are in icelandic and completely unintelligible, though i could have sworn that he kept repeating ‘in a loofa’ at one stage.
which doesn’t lead me neatly on to ‘godspeed you black emperor!’ who are from, yes, you guessed it, canada. they took to the tiny stage in shifts, there being nine of them. they were in serious danger of being overshadowed by sigur ros but gave a good account of themselves. to hypnotically strange video loops, they built simple guitar lines into massive walls of sound. again, the vocals were absent but the intensity of the experience would have rendered them obsolete in any case. ten-minute epic followed ten-minute epic which maybe became a bit predictable as time wore on. but the two drummers, two bassists, cellist, violinist and four guitarists (no, wait, that makes ten) kept driving on towards some kind of climax which duly arrived, again and again. the cockpit was suitably impressed.
so, tonight, canada ruled the airwaves and how often is it that you can say that?
(chrisso blackmore)