Omar Rodríguez-López, one of the most well known guitarists in alternative music of the past decade, returns to Brighton this evening to push on with his latest venture, Bosnian Rainbows. It’s a group that brings together exciting musicians from acts like The Mars Volta, Le Butcherettes and Dark Angels, and unsurprisingly, has packed out Sticky Mike’s very quickly.
If anyone is up to the job of supporting them though, it’s definitely The Physics House Band. Drummer Dave Morgan resembles a prog-driven Keith Moon and heads a rhythm section that could smash most others out of the park. The wild and mathy set they produce doesn’t include their more well known track ‘Titan’, but still glistens with sounds that do well standing next to tonight’s headliners.
Bosnian Rainbows decide to begin with the Portishead-style creeping of album opener ‘Eli’, and they actually go on to play a set that entirely follows the tracklisting of their self-titled debut album bar one omitted track. ‘Worthless’ is the first point at which Omar gets to show the room why he’s known for his guitar-work, producing riffs that mean many eyes are on him. It’s not exactly like there’s nothing else interesting going on though; Vocalist Teri Gender Bender prances up and down the front of the stage barefoot like some sort of psychedelic robotronic ballerina with painted toenails that glow luminescent orange under the UV light.
Whilst people get moving to the funkier leanings of ‘Dig Right In’, Omar has to ditch his guitar for his spare. The only thing is, his spare doesn’t have a strap and impressively enough, he gets through the rest of the song playing and holding up his guitar simultaneously.
The audience are already grooving back and forth at this point, but they’re set to move even more for ‘Turtle Neck’, one of the bands dreamier tracks and maybe even their best. Teri’s voice blends with the crisp playful guitar parts supported by a slew of driving effects, on top of the solid one-handed drumming and samples of Deantoni Parks and the bass frequencies supplied by Nicci Kasper’s synths.
Those bass frequencies get powerful and impressive for ‘On The Run’, supporting melodies that swiftly hook you in. The bass gets lower and even more brooding for closer, ‘Mother, Father, Set Us Free’. Against luring swells from Omar, Teri’s singing of the sweeping chorus vocal “I chose to ignore it, thinking I was better off dead” is driven through a climactic ending by the rest of the band.
The crowd leave, some wanting more, but all having experienced a fine example of what happens when four highly-talented creative types get together and you show how it’s done.
Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, Tuesday 13th August 2013
Words by James Fox
Photos by Mike Tudor @ Studio85UK
