When The Rapture played the Scala last year, those present witnessed a storming performance epitomised by bass sounds so loud it felt as though your internal organs were being rearranged. It was an intense feeling, only just remaining pleasurable. Knowing LCD Soundsystem (aka James Murphy from DFA) were about to be let loose in the same venue was a tantalising idea.
Before that though Juan Maclean is here to show us whether the faith shown by DFA, culminating with the double A side single with The Rapture (‘Give me Every Little Thing’), was going to pass scrutiny. The DFA stamp of approval brings kudos of unmeasurable cool that has been earnt through some of the most exciting releases of the last couple of years.
Although Juan Maclean kicks off the evening at a pace that can only be described as storming, it soon becomes apparent that this may be the first chink in the DFA’s formidable armour. Dealing in techno and house with some very eighties flourishes the pace remains unrelenting throughout the set. In it’s self it is enjoyable enough, the soundtrack to the hedonistic delights of club land, But that is also it’s downfall. The music lacks personality and although they press all the right buttons you can feel the manipulation.
LCD Soundsystem, however, deal in sheer pleasure and abandonment. James Murphy strolls onstage looking more like a college lecturer than the sonic terrorist he truly is. Shuffling around the stage it is apparent that this has nothing to do with the right haircut, stylists, marketing machines and music press hype and everything to do with the music. A full band including bass, drums, guitar and two girls dealing with all electronic duties joins him. The man himself concentrates on vocals and tambourines.
As they leap straight into the prolonged and outrageously funky introduction to ‘Beat Connection’ it is obvious that the sound is once again bang on the money. The bass makes the walls throb, whilst snares and bongos are pinging off every available surface. Murphy is locked into the beat, playing the tambourines on his chest. His first words of the evening are ‘Nobody’s falling in love / Everybody here needs a shove’, soon followed by ‘Nobodys coming undone / Everybody here’s afraid of fun.’
And then it really let’s off. The beats get harder and harder, bass and guitar more and more frenzied. Yet it remains just about under control, coherent. ‘Give it Up’ changes the mood. Suddenly it’s all about rubbery, skanking basslines, the band as tight as can be. ‘Give it Up’ is space punk, this is exactly what we should all be listening to in 2004, it is the sound of the future as imagined in grimy 90’s science fiction.
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The new material, that I would imagine, will appear on the debut album, ranges from a slightly under whelming eighties tinged dance track to an absolutely amazing garage rock tune with pulverising dance undercurrents. Appetite severely whetted.
The climax of the main set is a titanic rendition of ‘Losing my Edge’. The music anoraks delight, that takes the piss out of music anoraks whilst admitting to being the biggest music anorak of all but scared of the younger generation of music anoraks (are you still with me?). That’s at least post-modernism and quite possibly post post-modernism in action. ‘I was there / I was the first guy playing Daft Punk / to the rock kids / at CBGBs / everyone thought it was crazy’. All with the greatest clash of dance and rock you’ll ever hear underneath. It’s dance music for indie fans. Full of nods to post punk. It’s indie music for dance fans, full of knowing glances at hip hop and techno. It is the 2am hands in the air, whacked off your tits moment as DJ’d by Johnny Rotten. It does everything you should crave from music, it transports you just for a few fleeting moments away from whatever form your daily slog takes and shows you what life’s capable of.
For the encore Murphy returns with ‘Yeah’. This is the beauty of LCD Soundsystem, they don’t have one end of the night tune, they have a whole bunch of them. As the acid groove twists and develops until it feels the PA will finally give out under the sonic abuse, the crowd show their appreciation and all too soon they’re gone. Murphy briefly reappears only to realise he’s already played the song he was about to start and goes for good. Truly a gig to remember. As Murphy would say ‘I was there when LCD Soundsystem slayed the Scala’’.
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