Camden Crawl 08 (well…)

So last night I managed to swing a spare ticket and found myself headed Camden Town-wards to get sweaty with the kids in ‘intimate’ venues, hopefully hearing some hot new acts in the process.

I would have loved to at this point be able to say I’d seen Ipso Facto. It would have been amazing to have been held in thrall by Crystal Castles or even Reading’s freshest home boys Does It Offend You, Yeah? but sadly queues of an untold nature put paid to those designs.

We ended up trecking up to Bullet Bar in Kentish town for the Drowned in Sound stage. I caught the very end of Lovvers (balistic balls out punk that’ll have Gallows watching their backs,) and all of the not particularly striking Fanfario (who don’t appear to have a web page at the mo, if I track one down I’ll do an edit on this post).

M83 were my sole reason for picking that particular venue and surrendering all hopes of getting into the Earl of Camden or other proxies. However after a 45 minute delay a chunky brash sound tech addresses us to inform that a fairly crucial piece of equiptment has been left behind by the band. In France. When the band eventually took to the stage they played for 10 minutes before being hauled off due to curfew.

If it had been anyone else I would have been royally brassed off by this. However Mr Anthony Gonzales (who cites influences as Brian Eno, John Hugues and landscapes,) properly pulled a rabbit out of his ass and saved the day. The key piece of equiptment having transpired to be the sampler containing the basis of all the band’s work, Gonzales starting frantically twiddling knobs on his Yamaha and intermittently gurning and nodding his head – basically he was writing new material on the spot and composed an entirely improvised set in about 5 minutes. and MY GOD was it strong stuff; deep penetrating textured synths pulsing with restrained undulations.

M83 live is a very different beast from on record. Much punchier, much more heavy and rhythmic. Check out the track America below as a fairly good indicative guide. If you like it then crack open your piggy bank and shell out for the new record Saturdays=Youth which you can get from Amazon HERE.

M83_America.MP3.

(All tracks are included for sampling purposes only. If you like them you should support the artists by buying their work. If you are the artist (well done your stuff is blinding,) and you wish for your music not to appear here we will follow your wishes just email iwcwcwc [at sign] gmail.com and let us know.)

~ by iwcwcwc on April 20, 2008.