Saturday’s menu consisted of Speak Galactic, Courtney Barnett, Wire side project Githead and Goblin’s mighty soundtrack concert in St Bartholomew’s.
Speak Galactic, Green Door Store
We find the Brighton trio (pictured) working up an ambient storm, but tonight the singer’s oddly melodic wails are the only element of the live band not to blend and blur with the backing track. How much of Speak Galactic’s sound is automated becomes apparent when the band leave their posts to chat to each other – and the song continues. Time is running short and they’re deciding what to play next: an important consideration when their songs are rarely shorter than six minutes. We get two more and they’re excellent choices, both driving krautrock crescendos built around looped synth arpeggios. Alex Painter swaps his bass for a sax, then a beer, then another synth, but by then all eyes and ears are on the drums. Pounding furiously as the set reaches its climax, the drummer’s awesome display is final proof that the drum machine is redundant. It’s a joy to behold. (BB)
Courtney Barnett, The Haunt
As Courtney Barnett (pictured) and band kick off with slacker stomper ‘David’ it’s hard to avoid the elephant in the room. This one’s dressed in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans and hasn’t had so much fun since 1993. Barnett has a definite knack for a lazy earworm, simple flowing melodies which tend to slump in pitch at the end of phrases, encapsulating the slacker sensibility like the classic country music warble suggests heartbreak. Later, we hear ‘Out Of The Woodwork’, a Mazzy Star inspired ballad in which Barnett sings: “It must be tiring trying so hard to look like you’re not really trying at all.” However, with a beefier sound than the records, Barnett’s band ends up shifting the emphasis away from these offbeat and often witty lyrics, placing it instead on an alt country rock-out that would make Dinosaur Jr. or The Lemonheads proud. Barnett returns solo for one final song, a soft ballad which she claims is aimed to send us all home miserable. Such is her charm that it doesn’t have a chance. (BB)
Githead, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
As if he wasn’t busy enough with the running of DRILL, Wire’s Colin Newman has fitted in a launch gig for ‘Waiting For A Sign’, the fourth album by his other band Githead. Absent from the line-up is guitarist Robin Rimbaud (aka electronic artist Scanner) – it takes two stand-ins to fill his space – making tonight’s group “the South Coast’s premier Githead impersonation band”. An early cock-up brings out some good natured bickering between Newman and co-vocalist Malka Spigel but the band soon hit their stride. Buoyed by Newman’s distinctive aqueous guitar tones, the space in the music is close in spirit to Wire’s intriguing mid-period stint on Mute, the melodic repetition of the new record’s title track triggering bouts of blissed out dancing in the crowd. (SH)
Goblin, St Bartholomew’s Church
Performing a live score – sitting under the screen as a film unfurls above you, often just quietly waiting until your next cue – can’t be easy. But in the grand setting of St Bart’s (think being wedged between two skyscrapers) Italy’s Goblin perform their chilling, jarring but beautiful soundtrack to the 1977 horror film Suspiria to perfection. Time has been kind to the film, its colours look suitably retro now, and despite some slightly hammy acting the tale of witches in a ballet school can still shock with its downright weirdness. Goblin, though, remain the stars, and at their most anonymous – when you almost forgot they’re onstage – they are unmatchable. (JK)
DRILL:BRIGHTON, Various venues, Saturday 6th December 2014
Words by Ben Bailey, Jake Kennedy and Stuart Huggett
Photos by Jon Southcoasting
The SOURCE team covered all four days of DRILL: check out our reviews of Thursday, Friday and Sunday. There’s also more photos from the festival here.
