BUSSETTI, SPITZ LONDON, 21 NOVEMBER
December 6th, 2004 by susanna
You may be forgiven for having previously thought that Sunday evening gigs are for die-hards, students, or the unemployed. C’mon, it’s a school night, and the end of the weekend. You’d be mad to try and schedule an up-beat full-on ‘three-step-lounge-jazz-dance-hip-hop’ night with three acts on a Sunday night!
…wouldn’t you?
Well actually, no. Bussetti and Xploding Plastix might look a little crazed during performances, but the gig they held at the Spitz on Sunday 21st November was a resounding success. The London-based 7-piece hip-hop outfit, and the Norwegian electronic and drum trio both played to a packed house of nodding and leaping smiley-faced people. Unfortunately the audience had a large attack of the ‘sensibles’ at last-tube-time, so the talented Kieran Hebden, billed last, DJed to a rather empty room for half his set. Woe to you, mistaken people, learn to use nightbuses! Hebden’s great selection of tunes deserved a far larger audience.
Anyway, back to the beginning: with stomach leadened by large dinner and headache still quietly banging from the previous night, I forced myself along to the Spitz. As both bands are well known for their high-energy and complex tunes, I was afraid that it might all be too much for a Sunday night audience. However from the start there was a buzz in the queue outside, and it was rewarded as Bussetti’s set exploded with the dramatic ‘Debussetti’. This dancehall-Debussy fusion anthem (yep you did read that right) is one of Bussetti’s signature tunes. It has a theatrical feel, fast rhymes from front man Charlie Miller, a klezmah-influenced soprano sax refrain, and a huge cinematic chorus. A massive number which got the audience’s attention from the off.
After the beautiful ‘Softly’, the band’s single from last year, we were treated to another style change. As my ear tuned to the rap style (takes a while with it all coming so fast), I found the lyrics intelligent and significant, with pops amongst other things at ‘adland’ which ‘reminds me of the mother-f*cking lifestyle I ain’t yet got’. Bussetti might be a lot of fun, with carousel-inspired melodies and pronounced beats, but it seems Miller the ‘dressing gown philosopher’ can also do angry. Osama Bin Laden, Bush, large corporations, the Met Police and Bacardi Breezers don’t fare well. Maybe an obvious list for the average Guardian reader, but it is also pertinent one for these London listeners.
Personally, I enjoy Bussetti’s darker edge, and the laconic waltz of the ‘Song With Three Names’ plays on it well. It started with a synth-string intro worthy of a dark, modern fairytale. Jana Hermon’s vocals were subtly distorted to sound like Lamb’s Lou Rhodes. However in a strange and apt contrast her voice took Julie Andrew’s fine sound and diction for the chorus as she instructed the audience ‘it’s easy, it’s easy’, making for a clever and surreal melody. Evocative of fairground organs spiralling out of control, the song left me nearly as breathless as the band were on the hot stage.
Despite the heat in the small venue Bussetti stormed through their set and it ended with a crazy Greek wedding of a musical extravaganza. ‘Singasong’ had an air of confidence and ska undertones. Nick Atkins played his snake-charming melodies as Hermon and Miller listed what they don’t want to write songs about. Significantly they don’t want to ‘set the world straight’, but that’s unlikely to happen. Judging from the audience’s reaction, Bussetti were playing with the intention of sending us all into a whirling dervish and dances of chaotic abandon: I don’t think there was anyone left standing straight by the end of gig.
If you hadn’t heard Xploding Plastix live before you might wonder how they could follow the stomping basslines of Henry Scowcroft and Dan Edge’s keyboard and synth work. This particular Sunday night they delivered on cue, passionately and without compromise. Xploding Plastix have a wonderfully fast and distinctive sound. Their music complemented and built on the enthusiasm Bussetti had achieved before. It took the crowd’s mood into (I should apologise for my rather uncool effusiveness, but Xploding Plastix do deserve superlatives) what I can only describe as a crescendo of abandon.
Xploding Plastix are three award-winning Norwegians, two do clever electronic stuff and one is a very talented octopus man of a drummer. The band worked tirelessly on stage, Jens Petter Nilsen and Hallvard Hagen studiously twiddling knobs, stroking equipment and flinging their arms up to their drummer, Erland Dahlen, or the audience in turn. They smoked and drank and squinted and tweaked their way through their energetic repetoire. It seemed almost voyeuristic to be watching two such intense musicians.
The music was as busy as its masters. Like Bussetti’s, it teeters on the edge of chaos. The hooks gripped the audience and held them in. The ‘spagetti western’ refrains evoked a show-down with well-placed percussion. The pace, the musical references and the intensity of the heroic trio on stage makes the show a modern ‘Boy’s Own’ dream, which VJ Marky’s visuals complemented well. At times its drum and bass influence gave the music a majestic ‘lollop’. I couldn’t help thinking that if ‘The Hobgoblin Song’ had been a film score the film would definitely have had great big dinosaurs in it.
I found out after the gig that Hagen and Nilsen only pre-programme the stops in the music, everything is ‘live’, and much of the drumming was improvised. Electro-music cynics would definitely have been wowed by the passion and spontenaity of the show.
As I sit here on a drizzly Monday morning drifting off with memories of the night before, my advice remains, extend your weekend and seize those Sunday evening nights out! Believe it or not, it does make Monday morning more bearable.
Katy Johnson
More about Bussetti on their site www.bussetti.org
