Review:
'LAUREL COLLECTIVE/ MICACHU & THE SHAPES'
'London, Borderline Club, 13th May 2008'
- Genre: 'Indie'
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Our Rating:
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This is the launch of LAUREL COLLECTIVE'S mini album 'Feel Good Hits Of Nuclear Winter', released by Domino sub-label Double Six, and their single ‘Vuitton Blues’ being released a week prior, on 5th May. It is unclear who brought the bands playing tonight together. Was it the label’s idea? Is it the band’s initiative to promote current favourites? Is it all a twisted joke? It’s certainly a mystery, and here’s why.
First up, NAKED AND THE BOYS provide a lighthearted intro to this highly charged evening, full of expectant electricity and the promise of good good stuff. With their Lemonheads light sexy-pop, slight rockabilly touch, double bass grooves and boyish harmonies, they create a feathery wisp of a feel and a nostalgia to honest simplicity. This is gonna be a good night.
But then again, you just never know. Every once in a while something makes you throw your hands up in indignation and grunt ‘I give up’. Which is what happens when the next two bands appear in the most bizarre succession ever to grace the same stage. The headliners are the growing in popularity LAUREL COLLECTIVE. A band formed of 6 musicians, an international house of wannabe musos, including – well I never! – two lead vocalists: Martin Sakutu and Bob Tollast.
This being the main gimmick, they seem to have forgotten about any other aspect of originality. Sure, the roomful of teens comprising of the crowd seem happy enough - ecstatic, one might even venture. But this could be any other XFM endorsed band. This could be Razorlight, The Ordinary Boys, Franz, Coldplay even. A blander version of the The Editors, possibly. The guitar licks are predictable, and so are the bass lines.
Even with two vocalists the singing manages to remain uninspired; even taking into consideration that it is somewhat drowned out by the music and repeated pleas to the sound person are made to turn the mikes up. Energy they don’t lack in – there lies this band’s one redeeming feature. Thank goodness for Naked and the Boys, and particularly for the jaw-droppingly fantastic middle supporting act – Micachu and the Shapes – or this would have been a cruel waste of an evening.
How could it be that a headliner so bland, so mundane, inducing such intense feelings of contempt and irritable disappointment, will allow itself to follow a support act so innovative, fresh and fertile with ideas as MICACHU & THE SHAPES?
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21 year old Mica Levi – Micachu to us - reintroduces the concept of creativity, imagination and ingenuity to the drought stricken world of alternative music today, with the concept of alternative taken to its very extreme. A composition student who’s also been selected to compose a piece for the London Philharmonic which has been performed – an annual exercise for a select few, she engages in various forms of urban expression, combining elements of punk, grime, hip hop, house and whatever else tickles her fancy. Her songs are short, smart and gosh darn it – just full of humour. She uses instruments in ways that makes them feel touched for the very first time: small-bodied guitars get uked, keyboards serve as bass, strings muted with paper are plucked, cowbells provide orchestration and vacuum cleaners, it is rumoured, have also been used on occasion.
Micachu has worked with Matthew Herbert on the recent release of her single Lone Ranger, on Accidental Records, and has collaborated with many other contributors, such as Man Like Me, Toddla T, Ghost Poet and Golden Silvers on her self-produced Filthy Friends: Mixtape comprising a compilation of some of her grime experimentations. But Micachu’s live sets are performed with her band, The Shapes. With the terrific Marc Pell on drums and the versatile Raisa Khan on keyboard/guitars/backing vocals/percussion, they knock together short sharp shocks of tunes, each one a world in its own right. This is one to keep your ears pricked up for, to seek out and attend live performances and to relish every beat. Micachu and the Shapes are the most exciting prospects to step into London’s gig and music scene in recent years.
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author: Yasmin Knowles-Weil
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READERS COMMENTS
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I was at this album launch and it was possibly the best gig of new music I have been too for a long long time. But I was very surprised by this reviewers comments on the headliners?! It makes me think that Yasmin either has an agenda or she just hasn't really paid any attention to what the Laurel Collective are actually about. Firstly the reason they are on the same bill is because all bands are friends and have been playing gigs together for a while now... to be continued in next comment
------------- Author: coninshiwah
26 May 2008
Yasmin obviously hasnt been a part of this which is fair enough but I have been following their "scene" since back in the day and was shocked that someone could just assume a load of nonsense and just shoot off without actually knowing what they are talking about. I agree both Naked and Micachu are amazing but the Laurels are just as much a part of this and what they are all trying to express is variety!! Yasmin seems to be lacking in imagination.
------------- Author: coninshiwah
26 May 2008
coming bak to music the Laurels move from, Dancehall rhythms, to samba punk, garage rock, hiphop beats, 80's pop, oh yeah a bit of Indie.I mean maybe the sound was bad in there but please go and give these guys a listen for yourselves and you'll see what I mean. Sometimes you need to look a little deeper to find the truth which is why I think this band writes music which is actually not so obvious, emotionally honest and very passionate without actually taking themselves too seriously at all!!
------------- Author: coninshiwah
26 May 2008
Just think ... VARIETY!!!!!!!!!
------------- Author: coninshiwah
26 May 2008
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