Zun Zun Egui – The Luminaire, London 26/10/09

It must be gutting for a headliner to be so roundly outclassed by a band further down the bill, especially at their first ever London show. It’s even more of a shame given the precociously talented Our Brother The Native have impressed with their recorded output for some time now, their ethereal Panda Bear-meets-Boards Of Canada-meets-post rock both blissfully epic and beautifully subtle. But as a live entity, they’re out of their depth- they ambitiously attempt to replicate the splendour of their albums with just two people but with Joshua Bertram panicking over a myriad different effects pedals the music seems cluttered and unfocused. Whilst the resultant multi-layered compositions aren’t bad (though the vocals are often rushed and atonal), they aren’t nearly as breathtaking as you’d expect- despite their best efforts, there’s simply no denying you’d be better off sticking to the records.

That’s certainly not a conclusion that can be applied to Bristol’s mighty Zun Zun Egui, however. Their set begins with the lead singer, who’d been nonchalantly standing in the middle of the audience suddenly erupting into a trilling multi-lingual cacophony, bounding around the Luminaire like a wild-eyed madman before unleashing 35 minutes of the most eclectic, frantic tropical-experimental-funk-rock madness I’ve ever had the honour of experiencing. When a band can simultaneously remind you of Battles, Dirty Projectors, Talking Heads, Ponytail and Yeasayer you know you’ve got an original on your hands- the blistering jazz drumming, tribal chanting and brutally rhythmic bass-lines all adding up to one of the most engaging performances I’ve seen this year. The most exciting live band in Britain? Man, you better believe it.

It’d be remiss of me to ignore Tom Wilson, A.K.A Freezepuppy, who opened the show with possibly the most perplexing support set of recent times. My friend astutely summed him up as “Kevin Barnes having a mental breakdown” although personally I’d go for “an unsettling cross between Daniel Johnston and Max Tundra”. Whether his leftfield, fragmented synth-pop was any good is impossible to say- I suspect he was operating on a plane beyond the comprehension of mere mortals- but on a night that veered between the sublime and the ridiculous he seemed to fit the bill perfectly.