Doing it all: Soulwax live in London

Soulwax have always prided themselves and sold themselves on their talent – on the way they make music, with all its intricacies and detail. To bend a medium like Soulwax do, as easily as plying a warm piece of plastic to the shape you need, you have to know every inch. And they’ve made it their business in every second that they been creating music to be great at it.

Seeing them here (Brixton Electric, London, 8 April), years after what felt like a peak, is no different. The stage is drenched in darkness with only the glimmer of light from the gaggle of disco balls above giving minute clues to the set up beneath. As expected and usual the front of the stage is set up with two synths and any number of bells, whistles, knobs etc. But the moment a kick drum pops and the lights sing you can hear an audible gasp, as with every bang is a flash and with every flash you start to appreciate more and more what’s going on on stage. To the right: a drummer. To the left: a drummer. And behind everything: a drummer.

This live show is called the Transient Program for Drums and Machinery – a fairly heavy clue as to what was to be expected but even so the set up on stage is of note. Each drummer is squared away in their own section – two use Staccato drumkits and are at each side of the stage with a small roof above them, and the other sits at the back behind a clear crystalline Meazzi Wooding drumkit. There are many moments across the set where these three incredibly talented drummers let lose – bouncing off each other, battling and taking it in turns to throw the sound around the circle. Just that alone would be spectacle enough but it’s not enough for Soulwax.

Across the stage you also find a few modular synths, a guitar, a keyboard and pretty much every piece of soundwave bending apparatus one could possibly dream of. It looks like the deck of something from a sci-fi film or possibly just the innards of a recording studio in the wild.

Soulwax have always played with other people's sounds, other people’s work – but now, it seems, they’ve turned their power on themselves. (Which is not lost on them, of course – one of the tracks on the new album is titled “The Singer Becomes The Deejay”).

Their latest record From Deewee was recorded in one take, which, if you’ve seen them perform live recently, will come as no surprise. Track after track after track blends on and on, each track expertly mixed into the next like they’re playing their own setlist as if DJs not performers. Most notably this shows how well they’ve adapted their older tracks to sit alongside the new – although some that would undoubtedly clash with where the band are now are notable in their absence.

Troubling for some, but not all, is the split that’s found within (project) Soulwax. They are out and out something you turn to for a good time but there are varying tempos within the work they offer. For those who want guaranteed banger after banger to dance to 2 Many DJ’s or RadioSoulwax’s offerings have always been the preferred option, with Soulwax’s original material operating under that other wing of their numerous projects. If looking for one and stumbling across the other many could be disappointed, for it’s a different experience altogether. But when taken as one all their work shows the level and depth of their talent. Soulwax can always make you dance – it just takes more time, and possibly a different or deeper level of appreciation, to dance to their originals with as much immediate glee as their best mix that borrows from pop and every era of musical history. And in a way Electric Brixton is the perfect setting for such a challenge to take place - an old cinema with a rich musical history all of its own - carrying the memories of 70s and 80s heavyweights in its stripped-down peeled-plaster interiors.

Soulwax are still trying to do it all, and, to be honest, are doing most of it incredibly well. Their varying levels of success across different projects is noticeable in that it feels like it’s their own original material they are still trying to get to the sweet spot with. And it’s here you can hear, hell you can actually see and most certainly feel, how much they’ve put in to reaching the next level – they’ve instilled some simplicity and are no longer trying to be more than they are – just honing each moment down to a simple and excellent amalgamation of everything that’s gone before. Away with anything harking back to a guitar band (though one guitar did make it on stage for a couple of songs) and straight through to layers of electronic dreamland, simple circling, repeating vocal and synth combos for days.

Maybe they were just always ahead of their time, or maybe they’ve used the time between eight albums to hone themselves down to the finest sound they could. They’ve reached various small peaks in their time as artists but never quite taken the world by storm (as Soulwax, at least). But maybe that’s the price you pay for experimentation and evolution – they’re survived where many have not and have built an empire of sound as they did it.

But one thing is most certainly true: the world hasn’t had enough of Soulwax, yet.

Setlist:

Present Tense
Materplanned
Chloe
Conditions of a Shared Belief
Missing Wires
Krack
Is it Always Binary
Do You Want To Get Into Trouble
My Tired Eyes
Transient Program
Another Excuse
Glass
The Singer Becomes the Deejay
Here Come the Men in Suits
NY Excuse
Trespasseres
E-Talking
Noah’s Dark
Miserable Girl
Bullshit