Album Review: The Cure - Torn Down (2018)

My good buddy Ron is probably the biggest Cure fan I know. Ron queued on Record Store Day just to pick up a copy of the band’s RSD special, Torn Down/Mixed Up Extras, on picture disc vinyl. Ron’s also something of a vinyl purist. To the extent that the download code he received as part of his purchase meant very little to him. I’m not nearly as fussy, and naturally I was more than happy to put it to good use when he offered it to me.

Therefore, this review takes no account of the album’s packaging or overall presentation, just the music as found on the Torn Down portion of the release, not the wider expanded RSD reissue of Mixed Up. The download itself offers 16 tracks of old Cure, revisited and remixed by Robert Smith himself.

Of course, it’s a full decade since we last had any noteworthy or new Cure material. Which means the band - in its touring incarnation - is now starting to resemble a nostalgia act, and is in grave danger of losing any relevance it once enjoyed. However harsh that assessment will seem to fans of The Cure. I’m certain Ron, for one, would dispute and condemn such blatant blasphemy.

All of that said, this release is a timely reminder of just what it was that made the band so special in the first place. Keen fans will note that Smith is nothing if not pedantic, or very deliberate, with his track selection - each of the band’s 13 studio albums contribute one track each, with the remaining three makeover choices being culled from three compilations (Japanese Whispers, Mixed Up, and the Greatest Hits package of 2001). This means we get a terrific overview and a career-spanning set of remixes, with no single era of Cure music finding favour over any other.

It’s seldom the most obvious choice of track either - who knew, for example, that Faith’s gloomy album cut, ‘Drowning Man’, could be given an entirely new lease of life thanks largely to the addition of several layers of glistening synth. That remix - the Bright Birds Mix - is certainly one of my own favourites from the album.

There’s all-electric takes on ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ and ‘M’, which strip away the acoustic elements of the original album versions, as each track veers into a most unlikely trip hoppy realm.

‘A Strange Day’, ‘Just One Kiss’, and ‘Shake Dog Shake’ all stay relatively faithful to the originals, before an injection of additional sax on ‘A Night Like This’ (the Hello Goodbye Mix), turns it into a strange blend of yacht rock and acid jazz, with trademark levels of angst thrown in for good measure.

The Edge of the World Mix of Disintegration’s ‘Plainsong’ is another highlight, with just the right amount of gloss added by Smith, enough to allow it to remain true to the original, while also benefitting from the additional spit and polish applied.

‘Never Enough’ is the only Mixed Up contribution to get a makeover on Torn Down, and it comes in the form of the Time to Kill Mix, which, truth be told, is perhaps a little less compelling than that original take.

At this point, I should admit, my knowledge of latter period Cure is quite limited. I’m a big fan of most work up to and including Disintegration (1989), but most of the 90s is a void, or a big black hole for me in terms of Cure releases. The epic Bloodflowers (2000) temporarily pulled me back into the fold, but after that - post-millennium - I start to struggle again when it comes to recall and recognition.

Which basically means there’s a fair amount of stuff on Torn Down that I’m less familiar with - tracks like ‘Want’, ‘Cut Here’, ‘Lost’, and the closer, ‘It’s Over’. This probably doesn’t matter too much, as each of these tracks hold some appeal, but the danger is, over time, across repeat listens, the Torn Down remixes will tend to become something akin to definitive versions for me. For what that’s worth, as it’ll be different for each listener.

It also means that the second half of Torn Down feels a little more like new Cure, for all that I lamented earlier the lack of actual genuinely new Cure material. Which, I suppose, must be a good thing, right?

Torn Down is a worthy addition to the band’s extensive discography, not least for the wide scope of the project, and for the superb attention to detail on offer. And as a nice sequel, or sister release to the hugely popular Mixed Up. Thanks Ron.

Porky Post ... Classic Album Review: Max Romeo - War Ina Babylon (1976)

Another guest post from Porky, looking back at a genuine roots reggae classic:

1976 was a pivotal year in music: reggae was its peak and punk was an obscure art school sub-genre just about to be turned into a commercial anti-art dogma.

While punk flared up on the streets of London, Manchester and New York, Jamaica’s capital Kingston was literally on fire, with uncontrolled violence and gang warfare occurring during much of the decade. Political divisions and tribal loyalty were fuelling the economic distress afflicting the island.

Reggae reacted by getting proactive and putting down a roots agenda. 1976 alone saw some exceptional albums from Peter Tosh, Johnny Clarke, Linval Thompson, Burning Spear, the Mighty Diamonds, Tapper Zukie, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, King Tubby, and the genre’s sole superstar, Bob Marley and the Wailers, with Rastaman Vibration.

So it was a tough time to release a record with the danger of any record falling between the cracks, but among all of the above, please add this: War Ina Babylon by Max Romeo and the Upsetters (but commonly just attributed to Romeo), with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at the controls.

Romeo had experienced a burst of Warhol-esque fame/infamy in 1968 with a worldwide hit in Wet Dream, a song that really, like really, does not require any explanation. Then he grew up, became a Rasta, and saw the shit hitting the fan.
The music reflects the cover: a distraught woman holding her head in her hands with a handkerchief to cry into.

The magnificently roots reggae One Step Forward is a call to reject a narrow road to despair and urges politicians to take the “narrow” road to righteousness.

It opens side one, which contains the four heavyweight tracks that tie War Ina Babylon together. As we’re digesting the demagoguery of this, Romeo tears into Uptown Babies, a more accessible track, feathering the traditional pop modus operandi of musicians in other parts of the Americas, with a dissection of the class divide. For some, life isn’t a chore if you have a network of people to look after you.

“Uptown babies don't cry/ They don't know what hungry is like/ Uptown babies don't cry/ They don't know what suffering is like/ They have mummies and daddies/ Lots of toys to play with/ Nannies and grannies/ Lots of friends to stay with.”

How nice it is in Pleasantville.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks …

“Hear that little baby crying?/ Yes she's crying, she's crying/ She's crying because she's hungry/ You can hear her mama saying/ It ain't easy, ain't easy/ Ain't easy when you're poor, you see/ And speaking of life in the ghetto/ Where survival is the motto/ And putting it to you/ Poverty is a sin.”

Chase the Devil (later sampled by The Prodigy) begins with Romeo bellowing: “Lucifer son of the morning, I'm gonna chase you out of earth”, before it turns into this magnificent spiel on the righteousness of Rastafarianism and the dangers of turning to the ‘other side’.

Playing into the run-out groove is the title track, a spectacular, foreboding track that is up there amongst the best things Perry has produced – and this during a period in which he was positively hallucinating with ideas which he provided to Marley et al.

The second side seems almost an after-thought in comparison but neglect it at your peril. Stealin' (in the Name of Jah), is a gospel-style condemnation on the corruption of the clergy with an easy, swinging chorus.

“My father's house of worship/ Has become a den of thieves/ Stealing in the name of the lord,” and bemoaning the fact the clergy makes everyday sacrifices while the reverend drives a fancy car and “buys everything tax free”.

“Strike the hammer of justice/ And set my people free,” demands Romeo.

Tan and See sounds very much like the Wailers at their peak, with female backing singers; Smile Out A Style is back to Romeo’s late 60s early reggae sound, sans the smut, and the penultimate track, Smokey Room, is an infectious track with a hook line spitting out ‘riddim’ over and over.

War Ina Babylon is in many ways a snapshot of reggae; it harks back to the early almost soulful days of the mid to late 60s, to the movement to the political mourning; an expression of the anger of the Rasta people and also a nod to the movement towards the rockier sound of roots reggae at the time that Marley and his rump Wailers used to such effect after the ’73 split.

It was just the beginning of a tremendously fertile period for Perry. In under two years he would produce an impressive batch of albums, several of which remain classics, such as Junior Murvins’ Police and Thieves and the Congos’ Heart of the Congos. War Ina Babylon can measure up to those and many others and is an essential piece of the roots reggae canon.

Romeo and Perry fell out over this record (the singer apparently felt he didn’t get remunerated properly) and while he recorded for many more years (including working with the Rolling Stones), nothing quite touched on War Ina Babylon. I would also suggest seeking out Fire Fe the Vatican, an immense single that didn’t – but should have – appeared on this album despite coming out in the same year.

Karyn Hay, RWP, Music Month, and all that …

Last Thursday I attended a fascinating New Zealand Music Month presentation hosted by Nga Taonga Sound and Vision in Wellington, which featured a Q & A session with iconic former Radio With Pictures presenter Karyn Hay. It was the culmination of several NZMM events I personally engaged with this year (throughout May), and I was happy to be able to share this experience with my close buddies Simon and Ron, both of whom who share my passion for 1980s nostalgia of a local “grassroots” flavour … and other things, like drinking, football, and fantasy bands.

Radio With Pictures was an institution on New Zealand television throughout the 1980s, well in advance of anything like the 90s excesses of 24/7 MTV, and while other presenters like Barry Jenkin (aka Dr Rock) and Dick Driver enjoyed tenures on the show, Hay’s presentation across the mid-80s period has always been the most memorable element of the show, for me.

It was something I looked forward to every week. Its late Sunday night timeslot – just prior to the regular Sunday Horror feature – provided temporary respite from the horrific sense of dread I’d usually experience when contemplating the start of another working week. Quite aside from introducing me to a wide range of new music, the show would regularly transport me into another world, one I would otherwise feel very isolated from down here at the bottom of the world. It also championed local music in a way we’d never really experienced before, beyond the realm of student radio.

As part of the sold-out theatre/cinema presentation we were privileged enough to view a full episode of Radio with Pictures from 1985 – introduced to us as episode 15, I believe, although that itself was the source of some confusion for me, as surely there were more than 15 episodes prior to 1985? … with Hay herself having been involved with the show since 1981.

Regardless, this particular episode was a special one in that it featured women artists entirely, including a priceless segment covering the 1984 Women’s Performance Festival in Auckland. We learned later that at least one artist who appeared in that segment was in the audience with us. Other clips highlighted the extraordinary talents of Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Ricki Lee Jones, and the fabulous Patti Smith.

The post-viewing Q & A, or discussion, was both amusing and mind-numbing in equal measure.

The amusement came from Hay’s account of things like interviewing a brash (and drunk) Billy Idol, her frequent costume dilemmas, and stories around the wider DIY (and live) approach of Television New Zealand at the time. Plus, a mention of the show’s often bulging postbag, the correspondence viewers would send in, often just to voice criticism of her VERY Kiwi accent. One thing Hay emphasised, given today’s highly regulated environment within that medium, was the amount of genuine freedom both she and the show’s producers were given to do whatever they wanted. Radio With Pictures was all the better for that.

The mind-numbing aspect related to a couple of dodgy middle-aged blokes lamenting the state of “today’s modern music”, or asking moronic questions like “where can I source good music today?” … like Karyn Hay could help them with any of that? Clue: you can source good music everywhere, in abundance, on multiple platforms, in a way we couldn’t possibly have conceived back then.

For my own part, in relation to the accent thing, I was able to offer the perspective of a regular viewer who could dig her accent, with all other mainstream television of the era – beyond comedy – being presented in very correct post-colonial BBC English. Hay’s point of difference, her casual languid chatty style, or her “lazy tongue” as she put it, was precisely the thing that transported her into our lounge(s) … and that colloquial accent had a certain girl-next-door appeal, long before that style became popular on our screens.

More generally, it was a pleasure to get Karyn Hay’s behind-the-scenes take on a show that proved formative for so many New Zealanders of my generation. These days, at age 59, as a mother, an award-winning author, and current Radio New Zealand presenter, Karyn Hay is an unheralded national treasure. I’ll certainly be making more of an effort to check out her radio show in the future.

***

I know New Zealand Music Month has its fair share of critics, for reasons many and varied, usually in context of it being unnecessary and a little self-indulgent, but I embrace it for the opportunity it presents to celebrate our pop culture history. If we don’t do that, nobody else will … so what’s not to like?

Throughout May, on the blog’s Facebook page, I shared a daily “sleeve of the day” post, a local album or single sleeve (record cover) I had some sort of personal connection with, or felt some sort of affinity for, posting a short blurb about the sleeve (or about the music/each release itself). As I worked my way through the month, while contemplating each day’s selection, I was continually reminded of the broad base of genre local artists have established, musically, and in a wider artistic sense. Indeed, how incredibly creative a lot of those record sleeves (or CD covers) were/are. Of course, some have stood the test of time better than others, but even the worst of them are still able to inform, or tell us something about where we’ve come from, or to offer a glimpse back into our collective past.

Just a quick word on May’s Wellington Museum exhibition, Burning Up The Years, which dealt with the Wellington music scene 1960 – 1978. It was only a small exhibition, and probably not music month’s most high-profile event, but it was well worth a good half hour of my time. There were old gig posters, rare vinyl displays, band profiles, and interactive stuff like listening posts etc. The best thing of all? … big screen flyover footage of the city and central Wellington landscape as it stood in the mid-1970s, and a startling reminder of just how much development inner city Wellington has seen over the past four decades.

Finally, a shout out to DJ Bill E and the San Fran crew for putting on another ‘See Me Go’ event a week or so ago in celebration of all things “us”. New Zealand music, all vinyl, all night. Fantastic. You can listen to the (pre-gig) promo clip on Radio New Zealand at the link below:

https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nat-music/audio/2018646332/five-nz-dancefloor-bangers-with-the-host-of-legendary-clubnight-atomic

Here’s Split Enz with ‘Give It A Whirl’, which just might be the greatest local thing ever committed to black magic plastic:

Something Different: Estella Dawn

Writing for NZ Musician is essentially a labour of love, and while it’s given me the opportunity to chat with local heroes like Paddy Free (Pitch Black), Darren Watson, and the guys from Head Like A Hole, to name just a couple, few interviews come with the personal connection this one offered ... that rare experience of chatting with someone you first met when they were a baby. Or when you can claim to have met their grandparents, even!

Estella Dawn is a young Kiwi singer-songwriter of considerable promise, currently based in Colorado, and although I don’t necessarily fit the exact demographic Estella’s wholesome pop style targets, I really enjoyed having the opportunity to profile her for NZ Musician – by way of an “ex-pat files” piece on the magazine’s website (link below). You can sample her sole release to date via Spotify, but look out too for a new set of tunes in the not too distant future ...

Estella Dawn profiled for NZ Musician (here)

More Dub Vibes From The Echo Chamber

We love us some dub vibes up here in the everythingsgonegreen tree hut, so just a quick post to highlight the release of yet another volume (or two) in the Dan Dada Records ‘Echo Chamber Around The World’ series of excellent compilation albums. We're up to volumes 9 and 10, featuring Aotearoa’s own Dub Terminator, plus 34 more top notch dub and roots reggae tracks from a wide range of artists. My own favourites here are tracks from Burning Babylon, Dubmatix (ft Earl Zero), Ras Bruno, Mystical Warrior, DU3normal, Mr Zebra & Rebel I, Dubalizer, Guidub, and Funk Dub Division, but there’s no real duds on this expansive globetrotting release. Released under an international Creative Commons license, free downloads don’t get much better than this … here’s the label’s blurb and a Bandcamp link:

For the last 22 years Dr. StrangeDub (Michael Rose) and DJ Baby Swiss (Elmar Romain) have been bringing dubwise sounds to the massive on their radio program the Echo Chamber. With the heaviest dubs, the most conscious roots, and the funkiest club beats from around the world, all chilled and expertly mixed into a subsonic stew, the Echo Chamber is always the hippest place to be every Wednesday morning (from 2:00 to 6:00 a.m US CST). The program airs on KFAI-FM in Minneapolis, MN (U.S.A.) at the 90.3 and 106.7 frequencies, and streams online at www.kfai.org. Find the playlists and two most recent programs in the KFAI-FM archive at: www.kfai.org/echochamber. Also check the two online archives of past shows: Mixcloud -- www.mixcloud.com/strangedub/

A typical show features a heavy dose of the latest roots & dub reggae and a potent shot of old school roots and dub. But dub just lays the foundation and holds the trip together: the DJ dub doctors cover the entire reggae rainbow, and they pull in the heaviest chilled beats from clubs around the world. For most shows, Dr. StrangeDub is at the controls for the first 2 hours, while DJ Baby Swiss "runs tings" in the second half of the show. For this compilation, the Echo Chamber has once again teamed up with Bandulu Dub and Dan Dada Records to present a worldwide trip into Dub. This collection represents a broad variety of musical styles... and spans the globe in doing so. This is very much in keeping with the eclectic "anything goes" format of the Echo Chamber radio program – where “dub” is as much an attitude or approach to music as it is a genre of music. On behalf of Dan Dada Records, Dr. StrangeDub (Michael Rose) and DJ Baby Swiss (Elmar Romain) extend our undying gratitude to all the artists and record labels that agreed to be a part of this worldwide dubwise project! Spreading the positive dubwise vibe to the world... 

Album Review: Disjecta Membra - Achromaticia (1997/2017 20th Anniversary Edition)

When Michel Rowland of Disjecta Membra revealed late last year that the band’s debut album from 1997, Achromaticia, was about to benefit from a twentieth anniversary makeover, I knew immediately that I needed to pick up a copy. Despite already having a copy of the album in digital form, I pre-ordered the expanded triple CD set online and waited some months for its arrival. There were delays, mostly due to the fact that Rowland is a staunch perfectionist who wanted to get every last detail of the release exactly right, but late last month the CD(s) finally turned up in my letterbox. It’s fair to say, it was well worth the wait.

The release is made up of the original album on one CD, plus two further CDs containing demos, live tracks, covers, and excerpts from a Contact FM radio interview recorded while the band was still in its infancy. My purchase included a fourth element in the form of an additional digital download, which features more odds and ends of that ilk. The whole thing presents a fascinating, comprehensive, grassroots-level overview of one of Aotearoa’s most unique bands.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to describe the Hamilton-born, now Wellington-based Disjecta Membra as this country’s leading darkwave or goth rock band. Rowland – as founder (in late 1993), vocalist, and principal songwriter – has always been at the heart of all things Disjecta Membra, with various band members coming and going over the course of the past two decades. The album’s inlay and liner notes acknowledge the other key individuals involved, and to some extent those notes work as a potted history of the band. That booklet, and the packaging in general (photos, artwork, notes), is a lovely bonus.

The music on the core album itself is typically dark and cinematic. It opens with the dramatic ‘Cathedral’ and builds in intensity from there. ‘Cathedral’ finds Rowland channelling the not-quite-yet ghost of Andrew Eldritch and that track pops up again later in the form of a Deus ex Machina remix. For me, it is the heavier tunes within the 14-track set, such as ‘Rats’, ‘Cauldron of Cerridwen’, and ‘The Sleep’ which hold the most appeal. But there’s a good mix of stuff – from shorter tracks like the dreamy spoken word wonderment of ‘Malcolm’, and the one-minute interlude of ‘Androgyne Waltz’, to the theatrical-almost-epic qualities of the 11-minute-plus closer ‘Danse Macabre’, which never quite lets you breathe out. In short, the album covers a great deal of ground.

Probably not quite as much ground as the three bonus sets (two discs, one download) however, which offer huge insight into how the band evolved. It has to be said, some of the earliest demos, the basement and garage recordings, are a hard listen, simply because of the poor audio quality. As you’d expect from material of that description, and vintage. Similarly, a lot of the live stuff sounds a little worse for wear. Yet, for all of those flaws, there’s real energy there, and a genuine sense of the post-punk spirit which clearly drove the band in its fledgling form. Most captivating, for me, are the various covers on offer, with work by some of my own favourites – The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, and Siouxsie – all getting at least one box ticked.

Overall, the triple CD/four-set release is a wonderful snapshot of early Disjecta Membra. It’s one of those time-and-place things. If you weren’t there – and I wasn’t – it doesn’t really matter, you can catch up now with this massive collection of archive material. Probably more Disjecta Membra than you’ll ever really need, but well worth the indulgence all the same. Terrific stuff.

Read more about Disjecta Membra here, here, and here.

Disjecta Membra's website

And you can read more about Michel Rowland’s “other” project here.

Here's Cathedral ...

More on Super Black Market Clash

Something and nothing, but worth sharing for the anoraks out there …

Last week, when I posted a review of Super Black Market Clash, I noted that the band was responsible for “some exceptional and perfectly conceived album covers, and Super Black Market Clash is an excellent example of that, its imagery suiting the album’s largely rebellious content perfectly”… but I actually had no idea of the history behind that particular sleeve. This week, rather coincidently, some info popped up in my Twitter feed which helped to fill in a few blanks (h/t @thatpommybloke): the photo features longtime band associate Don Letts (Big Audio Dynamite, The Slits) approaching police during the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival, which was noteworthy for serious confrontation between revellers and police ...

The pic below superimposes the album sleeve into a current day photo of the exact location where all the action took place.  

More on this from Wiki:

In 1976, police had been expecting hostility due to what they deemed as trouble the year before. Consequently, after discovering pickpockets in the crowd, police took a heavy-handed approach against the large congregation of blacks and it became "no-man's land". The 1600 strong police force violently broke up the carnival, resulting in the arrest of 60 people.

Classic Album Review: The Clash - Super Black Market Clash (1980/1993)

Super Black Market Clash is basically an expanded version of 1980’s Black Market Clash 10” EP release, and essentially it’s a compilation album incorporating many of the band’s b-sides, rarities, remixes, plus other odds and sods. It covers a five-year time frame (1977-82), and as it tends to avoid the more obvious stuff, it results in a celebration of some of the band’s more unheralded moments.

Another consequence of this almost random approach is that we get a wide range of styles and perhaps the album’s biggest achievement is to successfully showcase the band’s extraordinary versatility. No bad thing.

So much so, it’s actually like a rough guide - a compacted version - to The Clash; from their earliest punk-edged incarnation as found on ‘1977’ (the flipside to ‘White Riot’), and ‘Capital Radio Two’, to the ska flavours of the Maytals cover ‘Pressure Drop’, the whitened urban soul of ‘The Magnificent Dance’ and Booker T’s ‘Time Is Tight’, the mid-album dub peaks of ‘Justice Tonight’ and ‘Robber Dub’, right through to the closer, ‘Mustapha Dance’, which is a remix of the 1982 single ‘Rock The Casbah’, this remains fairly eclectic yet still utterly compelling stuff.

And whatever else you can say about The Clash, love 'em or hate 'em, possibly even a bit of both if you’re anything like me, the band deserve plaudits for some exceptional and perfectly conceived album covers, and Super Black Market Clash is an excellent example of that, its imagery suiting the album’s largely rebellious content perfectly.

Classic Album Review: The Clash - London Calling (1979)

Forget about The Clash’s punk roots, by the time London Calling came out in 1979, the band had evolved considerably, and the result was this masterclass in cross-genre pollination. Not that the band had moved on entirely, or abandoned its core ethos; it's simply the case that collectively, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon, had improved markedly as musicians, and as a unit, and were thus better able to get their message across in a tighter and far more emphatic fashion.

While punk had started to encounter credibility issues, The Clash were evidently quite determined to be taken seriously, and in many respects, London Calling, with its underlying political posturing and unashamedly direct social commentary, established a template that many a post-punk contender would seek to adopt or emulate over the course of the following decade.

What should also be recalled is that the band were still a few years away from fully breaking through in the USA at this stage, and despite the album essentially being conceived in the States, London Calling retains a sense of Englishness that by default or by design still defined them. Make no mistake, even if they’d given this album a different title, the content would still evoke imagery of dark/wet grimy back streets, multicultural high-rise housing estates, rampant social injustice, and varying degrees of street violence.

When Combat Rock came out some three years later, with its plethora of US-chart breaking hit singles and stadium anthems, much of that tone and character was long gone and The Clash were headed for mainstream glory, concert tours, and extravagant pay days galore. It might be said, for all of their eventual popularity on the New World side of the Atlantic, by the time they belatedly achieved it, The Clash had already lost the very edge and points of difference that made the band so vital in the first place. It is hardly surprising a somewhat painful split was just around the corner.

So London Calling captures the true essence of The Clash, and any newcomer should start right here. The raw energy of the highly charged and almost threatening title track opens the album and that track itself remains perhaps the best example of what made the band so special. But look out too for the universal rockabilly influences on ‘Brand New Cadillac’. The ever-present Jamaican reggae vibes of ‘Guns Of Brixton’, ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’, and ‘Revolution Rock’. The similarly political overtones on the otherwise catchy ‘Spanish Bombs’. The simple funk of closer ‘Train In Vain’. Plus, what is, in my opinion, the album’s coup de grace, ‘Clampdown’, one of the best anti-working-for-the-man anthems ever committed to vinyl.

And all of that, before I even start to tell you how truly great that album cover is …

Gig Review: Pitch Black, San Fran, Wellington, 16 March 2018

Last Friday night, local electro dub fiends Pitch Black checked into Wellington’s San Fran venue for the second leg of the duo’s three-date Sonic Portal tour. It was a long overdue return to the capital for Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free, after Wellington missed out on the late 2016/early 2017 - mostly festival - dates that passed for the Filtered Senses (album release) tour.

A Sandwiches (club) gig in the capital of roughly a decade ago is still spoken about in glowing terms by all who attended (yours truly included), so it was little surprise to discover the San Fran venue almost full upon my relatively early 9.30pm arrival. Wellington dubheads and dance music aficionados clearly have long memories … though, of course, the short-term stuff may be more of a challenge. Whatever the case, this one carried the secondary billing of being a 21st party, with Pitch Black celebrating 21 years of being at the cutting edge of the local dub and electronica scene, and a cursory glance around the venue confirmed that it would just as likely have been years, if not a decade or two, since the last occasion many of these early doors punters had attended any kind of 21st celebration (that of their own children notwithstanding).

Free & Hodgson, dub fiends ...

Pitch Black had been playing around half an hour before I arrived, easing the crowd into the night with what they called their “downbeat set”, which meant a lot of gentle swaying and head bobbing, as our dynamic duo filled the room with layer upon layer of ethereal texture and languid bass-driven technicolour soundscapes. That continued for another half hour or so before we had the pleasure of Wellington’s own DJ Ludus (aka Emma Bernard) for company while our party hosts took a well-earned refreshment break.

Ludus was a perfect fit for this gig, and a swelling of the dancefloor during her mostly minimal ambient set – is minimal ambient a thing in genre-speak? – suggests she bought her own rather large following with her. It would certainly account for the injection of a few younger faces into the crowd, many of whom would scarcely have been out of nappies when Pitch Black unleashed its debut album, Futureproof, on an unsuspecting world 20-odd years ago.

When Pitch Black returned an hour later, the bpm factor and energy levels were upped significantly as they launched into what they call their “pumping set” with all the vigour of men half their age. It was around this point I realised it was going to be virtually impossible to review this (or any other) Pitch Black gig in any orthodox kind of way. The duo’s modus operandi is to continually fuck with the heads of their audience by blending and mashing together various tracks from different albums all at the same time. At no one point can it be said “oh, this is ‘The Gatherer’ …” or “this is from Rude Mechanicals”, because at no one single point are we being exposed to one single track. It’s a method that serves them well at giant outdoor festivals across the globe, and it is one that served them equally well at San Fran last Friday night.

Suffice to say Messrs Hodgson and Free covered a fair portion of their illustrious back catalogue as the night progressed into the wee small hours and we zig-zagged back and forth between albums. And they did so with some gusto. If they bypassed Wellington last time around, they were clearly keen to make it up to us, something they achieved with ease, and more …

If I have a complaint, and it’s probably more of an observation given the limitations of the venue, it’s that the visual feast I’ve always associated Pitch Black gigs with in the past simply wasn’t there this time. There was a backdrop with a multitude of FX and far-out visuals etc, but the lighting was relatively ineffective and the whole thing (visually) just failed to hit the heights I’ve come to expect. Having said that, San Fran can’t be faulted for its sound, which was crisp and clear, and there was a moment during the second set when I swear that bass was travelling straight through my chest.

I can’t wait for the next one, just don’t make us wait so long next time, eh fellas?

Here’s something I wrote about Pitch Black for NZ Musician some 18 months ago …

http://nzmusician.co.nz/features/pitch-black-futures-knocking/