Battles / Fuck Buttons / Dirty Projectors – London Astoria 14/05/08

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Fuck Buttons

This is most probably my last ever gig at the Astoria before they knock it down to pave way for shops and cafes or the new Tottenham Court Road station but it’s shaping up to be a goodie. It all begins with Bristol’s Fuck Buttons, who radiate their brand of towering, pristine experimental electronic doom with their Casio keyboards and Nintendo game boys. They drop the twinkling ‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’ which ascends into brutal fuzzed anguish. Glorious. The one drawback though is they do tend to indulge an awful lot. Where songs seem to stay on an infinite loop but don’t show any progression and a couple of songs do begin to border on being dare I say, tedious?

Next up, and perhaps my surprise highlight from the evening. Dave Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors, who seem to be accumulating a fair bit of buzz recently but have completely passed me by until this evening. What can I say? I was utterly enchanted by their slow-tempo highly melodic takes on Black Flag songs from ‘Damaged’. I could sense a strong divided atmosphere in the crowd. While some people totally immersed themselves into the performance, others looked apathetic and bored. I could understand why. Longstreth’s voice is pure marmite. He sings in high pitched wails which either leave you feeling giddy or grating your teeth. Simply, you either love or hate it.

Dirty Projectors

Whereas some could find the Ren & Stimpy fiddly guitars in ‘Six Pack’ off-putting, I thought they sounded fresh, breezy and inventive. The secret weapons in this act though are the pitch-perfect harmonies perfectly supplied guitarist Amber Coffman and bassist Angel Deradoorian who give the songs a gentle but essential lilt. ‘Thirsty and Miserable’ and ‘Spray Paint The Walls’ expertly displays this. Critically, the songs tend to constantly shift into Deerhoof-esque avant-noise moments which only emphasis the tender, delicate moments, providing a further dynamic. By the time they close the set with ‘Rise Above’ ends the set, I notice my cheeks are hurting, I was smiling that much. Engrossing stuff. In my needless opinion of course.

New York’s Battles momentum is seemingly unstoppable right now and their intense live show perfectly encapsulates this. Dave Konopka takes to the stage to lay down bass notes which later become sped-up and sampled before the rest of the members take to the stage to kick into a vicious ‘Race: Out / TIJ’ amalgamation. An expertly executed ‘Tras / Tonto’ follows, sounding boisterous, frantic, and tighter than ever. However, it was only until they unleashed ‘Atlas’ that the crowd really livened up and became animated. It’s easy to see why it appeals so broadly with its chugging primitive underlined drums but it could prove to be the proverbial albatross around their necks being the ‘hit single’ with the entire crowd beginning to sing and jump in time to John Stanier’s hoedown beat and Tyondai Braxton warbled vocals. It was utterly mental.

Battles

Fingers crossed that they now start working on LP2 now and perhaps they need take a break from playing live (as much as it pains me to say that). They’ve been touring non-stop it seems for the past 2 years now and to my reckoning the set list was pretty much the exact same as the last few occasions I witnessed them. Still, during the encore they did play the explosive ‘HI / LO’ from the early EP C release. A song which never fails to make me breakdown a robot shape as it oozes math-fuelled funk with Ian Williams’ hi-pitched synths to the intricate time signatures and volatile peaks as Stanier reaches up to smash his highly placed cymbal after one drum roll after another. I asked John once “Why so high?” “Why? Because it’s funny!” he replied. After seeing his sweat-drenched shirt, I can definitely tell you they are definitely not joking.