Four Tet / Explosions In The Sky

There’s something about the Midlands’ music crowd, perhaps it’s the lack of a localised identity like those that the North & South are each christened with, but people seem far happier to amble along in complete indifference to the world around them, collecting themselves wherever the wind might take them like lost cattle. It may be a harsh judgement, but I can think of few other places where gigs routinely sell out, the venues fill until they’re bursting at the seams, then the show falls flat on its face simply because the crowd seem to forget where they are and what they’re supposed to be doing. (nah, seen that happen in London plenty of times - ed)

Tonight’s show falls victim to Nottingham’s apathy, and Explosions In The Sky are the first over the parapet to be taken down. The Texan four-piece position themselves awkwardly on the stage – the normally cosy Rescue Rooms tonight feels as empty and cold as a disused sewer tunnel – and as they perform their meandering instrumentals the crowd struggle to pay attention. It’s always hard to criticise ‘atmospheric instrumental’ bands as you know their sounds often come from a place so deep & personal that they can’t even find words to articulate their feelings, but an exception must be made as this lot really are not very good. They come across as a feeble and unsure M83, with less of the ambition or creativity that mark the aforementioned French sound manipulators out from this murky crowd. They’re even worse than Engineers and that’s saying something. Their dense, uninspiring and often annoying music undercuts the vivid imagery painted by their name… listening to them is less like lying on your back watching Technicolor fireworks pepper the night sky, more like being flipped face first in a muddy trench whilst mustard gas wafts by above you.

Following the lacklustre opening, through no fault of his own, Kieran Hebden aka Four tet has a lot to reconcile with the uninspired crowd. The wildly acclaimed laptop DJ is a master of sonic contortion, merging acid jazz & folk loops over possessive hip-hop beats and violent electronica. Bridging the gap between Warp Records’ patent experimental hardcore and Ninja Tune’s alternative, deep-lounge signings, watching him jump from laptop to sampler to laptop to mixer, producing a multi-textured sonic fuzz that calls upon your very innards to get up and dance, is like watching a busy chef chop beats and fry samples at a breakneck speed, to be served up piping hot.

It’s a wonder and a shame that such transcendently beautiful music, produced with so much visible love and attention, can be so largely lost on the thankless crowd. Although a few pockets of appreciation open up towards the later end of the show, it’s largely the business of self-conscious head-nodding and faint applause when there is an occasional gap in the music. For those that do embrace it, all the better for them – Fourtet’s music is defining and affecting and as sonically rich as any great painting or work of art. But similarly, to appreciate something, you have to engage with it and what it is trying to achieve. Tragically, tonight this concept is lost. Go see Fourtet, but make sure it’s not in Nottingham.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.