Finally I've had the chance to see SAVAGES live. I have been trying to achieve this since they started all of, what?... a year ago as a new project by Jehnny Beth of John & Jehn: a band I've loved since seeing them as an opening act at the old Luminaire.
This, though, was the first London show that hasn't clashed with something else so I was more than willing to go to one of my all-time least favourite London venues for the show.
Now thankfully the Electrowerkz have managed to tart themselves up quite a bit from the old days when you'd want to fumigate your clothes after going there. They even have modern conveniences such as a bar and functioning toilets, yes that's right for many years they operated as a nightclub without a bar!! The later in the night it got the more fights and arguments over people taking other peoples drinks stash!!...
So after getting in to this sold out show (it sold so quickly they had to add a second night) I went upstairs to the main room where ZAN LYONS was onstage standing behind the table of gadgets he played along with a viola. What greeted me was this tsunami like sound not far off of Robert Post's Crossing Casco Bay but with these slabs of knee-shaking bass caused by Zan hitting some trigger on the table to create this wall of bass that he then covered in glitches before picking up his Viola. He used this to make short samples that then repeated creating a soundscape that was somewhere between Wharton Tiers and Suicide.
He started one piece with what sounded like the Glockenspiel from Hell being played into an echo chamber with a didgeridoo sample thrown in for good measure. That evolved into a sort of Terry Riley-style mathematic theorem of the destruction of modern music through glockenspiel samples. It was powerful and totally in your face and went down pretty well.
In the break between bands, they had a DJ set from Andrew Wetherall who played dark gritty techno, often propelled by bowel shaking bass parts to it to get us all worked up and ready for Savages.
Well if Jehn was super cool in John & Jehn then Savages have upped the cool stakes somewhat. All the fuss about Savages in recent months has shown just how cool she is and now the band are promoting their second single I Am Here which is a live 12" four track single which is again on Jehnny's own label, Popnoire (see live link below).
So live this is like a hurricane of noise coming at us from these 4 girls and I have to say they sound to me like a cross between Echo & The Bunnymen and Certain General having had gender reassignment surgery to take most of the ego of Ian McCulloch out of the equation.
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I wish I knew the songs well enough to say what they played but my guesses at song titles don't resemble anything I know they should! Either way, it was a bit of a surprise that Jehnny is only the front woman now and doesn't play any keyboards in Savages. More's the pity as I love her Moog work. I'm guessing that what was whipping us all up into a frenzy was City's Full and Husbands as Jehnny stalked the stage and Ayse Hassan pummelled her bass and then just did some incredible finger work which never seem to repeat too much.
Gemma Thompson kept a classic Shoegazing pose over her guitar for most of the set as she picked out choppy guitar lines and whacked us with all sorts of distortions and noises. As the place just got hotter and more into it, the energy coming from the stage was incredible. The one song Jehnny introduced was Shut Up and it made the crowd go mental as it has very quickly become a favourite. It is a great slice of angry, angular art rock with some very propulsive drumming from Fay Milton. A highpoint in a great set.
The song that followed Shut Up seemed to have a good slice of Marie et Les Garcons about it but with maybe a little less of the Velvet Underground influence as the sound slammed into my ears and just about everyone was moving. When they went off at the end of the set, there was little doubt that they would come back as the crowd went nuts for more. As expected, it didn't take much to get them back for another slice of dark twisted Noire pop to twist our minds and leave us wanting more.
Thankfully, they will be back in London opening for Crime and the City Solution shortly and then Headlining Camden's Electric Ballroom on 21st February next year as well as playing their first US show in New York this week opening for the Dum Dum Girls.
Popnoire Records online
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