MONSTER WARP HALLOWEEN PARTY 2003
November 10th, 2003 by susanna
MONSTER WARP HALLOWEEN PARTY 2003, London, 31 October
I’m a fan of the musical laboratory experiments that froth out of the Warp petra dish. So I was almost as excited about beard-gazing at the Open University scientist lookey-likey types associated with this label, as I was about the fine line-up of A List bleep celebrities performing at this annual Warp shindig.
While wannabe Aphex Twin speccies were there in abundance, I was almost disappointed to see plenty of regular, straight-up music lovers in attendance too. I swear that at one point, I was even surrounded by girls (although, on reflection that memory may derive from a hair salon I visited earlier in the month).
My spectacle-spotting attention was soon diverted by a performance that seemed to represent everything that Warp strives to be; in a nutshell – entertainingly innovative. Jamie Liddell is on the mike, and is squashing his decent beatbox skills and soulful Robert Owensesque wails into a sampler, before sequencing the vocals he has just laid-down into a barrage of FX-laden breakbeat squelch.
While his tunes form one part Liddell’s distorted reality, his visual presence completes this retarded freak show, not only due to the accompanying big-screen images (Mohammed Ali in some sort of extra-terrestrial wheelchair/ Martin Luther King moon-walking), but also the man himself who sports what appears to be a bizarre homemade version of the cardboard hats you used to get given with an ’80s HappyMeal.
The promise of the comparatively down-to-earth 303 acid techno sound that Luke Vibert has revived on his recent YosepH album becomes somewhat welcome. This rare ‘live’ show seems remarkably similar in style to his Djing, whereby his special trick is to hit a looped cue button somewhere on his laptop. Questionable live elements aside, Vibert playing his own tunes is a sonically delicious prospect, and as the goggle-eyed bloke chewing his bottom lip off next to me would probably tell you, ‘you can’t arf jig to it’.
The crunchy electro breaks and gnarly old school synth sounds of ‘I Love Acid’ and ‘Acidisco’ make me wish I hadn’t wasted my early youth as a Phil Collins fan. However, the finale, and undisputed showpiece of the set harks back to a part of my childhood that I certainly can relate to; A bouncy, raved-up rendition of the old Grange Hill theme. Yeeeee-es!
And from Rave Zone ’88 to twilight zone ’03, as memories of Tucker Jenkins immediately filter into big-screen images of bats flapping away from a sinister sunset. This can only mark the launch of a Plaid show. With another new LP, Spokes, in mind, Plaid live have taken a deeper step into the melancholy harmonies that now trademark their lengthy career. Fortunately, this journey into the darkside, while lending typical attention to sonic and rhythmical detail, does not give way to dancefloor sensibility.
The customarily impressive visuals (as ever provided by the elusive Bob) are also showing signs of venturing into bleaker territory with kaleidoscopic gloom galore, particularly on the crowd-pleasing Double Figure album tracks, which (among other depressing graphical output), spur consideration of a somewhat meager everyday existence.
With these intelligent sounds and slightly bewildering lifestyle- questioning projections in mind, I cannot pretend that Richard D. James’ set wafts me reassuringly onto a fluffy mellow plateau; this particular AFX set consists uniquely of GabbaTechno. Nuff said.
Then again, it is this sort of turn in musical events that makes Warp such a fascinating label, where an ‘anything goes’ attitude to artistic freedom has mutated into much of conventional tunesmithery’s most admired bastard offspring.
Barrydark
Pic: Jon
