White Noise Festival – Firebug, Leicester 4-6/06/10

-

It’s fair to say largely instrumental post-rock doesn’t get a lot of beery, arms and phone cameras aloft mass singalongs going. Yet, right at the end of a long weekend of often thunderous music, trust Maybeshewill to get one going, closing their set with ‘He Films The Clouds Pt. 2′ and a fulsome singalong to its beatific “Now we’re apart, though not through choice…” choral part. It feels like one of those moments.

White Noise Festival is a thus far biannual event co-curated by Maybeshewill’s John Helps, taking over the bijou Firebug in Leicester for three days at a time with the pick of the local scene’s bands and all proceeds to local hospice care charity LOROS. Leaving aside Kasabian, who came from under the radar in local scene terms and are so all-encompassing that they barely count anyway, Leicester has for most of the last decade felt conflicted, somewhere that doesn’t always cherish what it has (more than one local scion has commented that the city’s achievers seem far better known when they play elsewhere in Britain) but also like the sort of place that could erupt into a more widely admired scene if only one band could make it over the top into a nationally known concern.

There’s certainly young bands playing over these three days that feel like they’re heading somewhere. These Furrows are tipped by those in the know as forthcoming A&R scrum inviters, ambitions to mini-anthemry deliberately tempered by twisty math-rock guitars, full-on charges and a command of mangled noisy melody that posits Tubelord as their nearest neighbours. Buenos Aires too seem ready for wider inspection, furious razor sharp post-hardcore shading a melodic inventiveness recalling Glassjaw or early Biffy Clyro. Herra Hidro, recently reactivated after a couple of years apart, similarly bury pop chorus ambitions below frazzled At The Drive-In crashing riffs.

In hype terms Kyte have been down this road before, even if their recent debut album proper was met with a more muted response. If the atmospherics have been dialled down on record they’re ramped up live, spaced out power and beauty in just about equal measure, allowing the slow burn synths, electronics and squalls of delayyed guitars to wash over the packed in crowd.

The two biggest draws of the whole weekender are kept until the end and put downstairs in the bar area, technically meaning two of the most aurally exhilirating bands around are essentially playing a free gig. Her Name Is Calla are an epic live proposition in all senses of the word. Their songs are not afraid to start quietly – you can, for once, hear a pin drop during these moments – and slowly progress, adding light and shade, before almost naturally bursting out into barely controlled anger and swelling chaos, sheets of storm-tossed distorted guitar and violin against powerful martial drumming and Tom Morris yelling into the void, collectively overpowering all in its wake before easing off to quieter if little less dark passages. It’s all received raptorously. It’s not every band that could get away with including in a 45 minute set an unreleased track – The Union, the closer from their new album The Quiet Lamb, presently due in August – that features three parts lasting over sixteen minutes, but the use of repetition, seemingly disjointed crescendos and finally pitching into dramatics makes sense before the now obligatory hammering set closer New England.

And so to our co-hosts Maybeshewill, just off a short UK tour and playing as if taking up the gauntlet Her Name Is Calla had just thrown down in terms of filling the room with noise and excitement. Two new works pick up pretty much where their recorded work left off, which with their post-rock informed noise studded with equal moments of metal riffola and becalmed moments of release over electric piano loops plus the odd film sample is no bad thing. Because they’re among friends they allow Darryl from These Furrows to offer some freestyle screamo over ‘Seraphim & Cherubim’. And it works. ‘Not For Want Of Trying’ stands out, the Network sample feeling ever more appropriate against the bludgeoning guitar sounds. Then comes ‘He Films The Clouds Pt. 2′, halfway through which Her Name Is Calla attack the band with champagne, before the community singing and a stage invasion bring proceedings to a home turf triumphant close.

All photos by David Wilson Clarke