Rayographs – CAMP, London 28/04/2011

06 May 2011, 13:00 | Written by Jenny Stevens

(Live)

(Rayographs)

One long, pulsating guitar note signifies that Rayographs have arrived. It rings through the bank holiday revelry with a trance-inducing thrum. Pieces of crèpe paper flutter like dead leaves from the space-age silver pipes overhead. Even in the underbelly Old Street roundabout, in the office basement that is the City Arts and Music Project (aka CAMP), there’s a nod to the tomorrow’s impeding royal nuptials

But the red, white and blue tributes above ground melt to a heady purple in this subterranea as London three-piece Rayographs launch their eponymous debut album, serving up their brand of rich, thick psychedelia, with shuddering post-punk riffs and glistening choral harmonies.

Tonight is a culmination of their work to date. A handful of early 7” singles, “the oldies,” as singer and guitarist Astrud Steehouder describes them, are highlights from the start as the solitary guitar note soon canters into their 2008 debut single, ‘Hidden Doors’ – a Tupelo-eque thunder roll of drums, with all the vocal theatre of Nick Cave’s ‘Kicking Against the Pricks’.

Reverb-drenched strumming introduces ‘My Critical Mind’, a spoken word duet with Steehouder and drummer Amy Hurst, littered with throbbing bass and angular guitars. The soft-spoken poetry works better here than on ‘Falconberg Court’, where the narrative is lost amid impatient chatter – the sound of an audience longing for something less docile than a three minute stream of consciousness.

But the mix of spoken narrative, Slits-like wolf calls, and choral harmonies give an intensity to Rayographs, that draws in as the set progresses. They play with layers of influence, from music, film and visual arts. Take the Lynchian slide guitar on ‘Space of the Halls’. Or the opaque vocals on ‘Providence, Rhode Island’ – a tribute to photographer Francesca Woodman, which evokes the over-exposed blur of one of a her self-portraits; “I knew she was a writer, there were stories within” Steehouder sings, describing the morose, stretched-out body of the artist, who committed suicide aged 22.

Utilising their range of influences to effect has earned them have a credibility on the scene, demonstrated as Steehouder thanks their supporting DJs; no less than a newly-reformed Electrelane and rightfully lauded up-and-coming coming industrial minimalists Raime.

The penultimate track ‘Yellow Hair’, introduced with a giggle quite at odds with the dark intensity of the rest of the set, is the climax of the evening. The film noir thriller, whose shrill cries of “she said that they were going to kill her” amidst the dank shadows of the basement pillars, left a chill all the way to the Technicolor glow of the night bus.