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:: Thursday, May 26, 2005 ::

Gig Review: The Poke - Planet Mu Special, Jacks, London, 20.05.05

British food has a reputation outside of Brittan for being boring, tasteless, and greasy. (Or rancid and ambiguous as one of my local curry houses used to put it.) The reality of it is that it is going through a renaissance and it is now easy to find good food almost anywhere in the UK. However, the preconception is kept alive and well thanks to Membury Services on the M4, where roast chicken and cold chips with rancid greyish coloured onion gravy that tastes like it was made out of pickled onions will set you back £5.95. The plate looked much the same when I finished eating it as when I started. Fortunately for the UK, we do have a reputation for making fantastic electronic music. Good enough to make food like this and cross country trips after work on a Friday night worthwhile. For at the other end of the M4 lays Jacks in London SE1, and the biggest rave of home grown talent the behemoth of Planet Mu has to offer.

It was a shame that Luke Vibert had to cancel but I'm not sure how the line-up could have fitted him in anyway. The evening starts with c64 DJing in the second room whilst - Scotland's founder of Folktronica - Frog Pocket desperately tries to overcome technical problems and ground loops in the main room. The stage is scattered with guitar peddles and low-fi sequencer/sampler boxes as John towers over them with his violin and gives a great performance under the circumstances. Brilliant stuff.

Chevron provided another great set including all of the classics from his Everything's Exactly The Same album and, I think, some new material. A great mix of breakcore, acid, and gabba as usual, all with quite a dark funky vibe to it. (I've dropped in a nice Chevron truck picture from an M6 services just for J's benefit below, I know he likes them.)

London based, and Bristol formed, Vex'd are the first grime act of the night and slot in nicely. Deep punishing bass bas lines with those dancey garage rhythms; its kind of menacing and uplifting at the same time. They play all their stuff straight off of wax, no hiding behind laptops here, it's old school style all the way.

The same goes for Virus Syndicate, with music provided by Mark One behind the decks and MCs JSD, Goldfinger and Nika D spitting their Mancunian storytelling rhymes over each other. Absolutely great live performance. Is this ready to go mainstream? And bless, they were worried this wasn't their normal crowd and weren't sure it would work. They defiantly needn't have worried.

Label head honcho Mike Paradinas plays his µ-ziq set next, with his early 90's Rephlex era classics scattered among the hardest hitting sections of Bilious Paths and some of the new material due for release later this year. Listen to the Resonance FM Planet Mu special to hear some of this. There's a link on this blog somewhere.

Exile then plays another of his amazing improv drum and bass sets, with his cheeky comments going through a shed load of processing and cut ups as usual. Its great seeing an electronic act who is so obviously doing so much of the work live and working so hard to do it. I hope his recorded material has that same sense of spontaneity when the album drops next month.

Venetian Snares waits patiently for Tim to finish and the rapturous applause is well deserved, although a fair proportion of it is as much in anticipation of Aaron's set as it is for Tim. Starting off with the same string arrangement build as his set in Bristol reviewed a couple of weeks ago, this set goes off on more of a greatest hits tangent. It's less vicious in the tune selection and less violent from the audience point of view. Shame there wasn't the mosh pit effect that the Bristol gig had but still great, great fun nonetheless.

I have to admit to bailing out and leaving early, just after 5am, so I can't comment on Bizzy B, who had been bumped to the last slot due to turning up late (cunning). Anyway, here are some pictures:


Edit: Last nine photos added 30.05.05.

:: Dan 26.5.05 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post]    ::
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