Prinzhorn Dance School

It’s a nerd conquest tonight at The Social. Bespectacled musos in greasy chequered shirts, uber-indie offcuts with appalling haircuts and eccentric techno-boff outsiders mingle in amongst the venue’s usual scenester glitterati for tonight’s sci-fi line-up that’s the musical equivalent of Tron played backwards at top volume.

Prinzhorn Dance School attract a knowing lot, being recently signed to the hip-as-fuck DFA label (that’s LCD Soundsystem, Black Dice and formerly The Rapture, folks). The Portsmouth three-piece are an awkward triad of bare-bones drum and bass minimalism, with a few guitar-whines and infectious girly squeaks layered on top, balancing out their sonic logarithms.

Such is the onus on nominally clipped perfection, the band end up almost static, the life sucked out of them as they focus on the job. "You Are The Space Invader” rumbles along like tumbling tank down a dusty desert landslide. Maybe they’re just nervous, but tonight they hide behind the music, when they should be using music as a tool to assert themselves as musicians. Still, once DFA get their hands on them to record the album, who knows what might come fruition – a great selection of remixes at the very least.

To My Boy are an overly laboured joke. Synthetic drum squelches and strained vocals like a mad professor sat constipated on the toilet, the song introductions cause titters, “this song is about talking to a computer”, “this song is about The Periodic Table” etc., but the tunes are mostly crap. Current single “The Grid” is the best of the bunch, but it’s slim pickings. The crowd seem quite indifferent to it, there’s drinks offers at the bar, so most people are more content playing Let’s Get Wasted.

The irreverent two piece don’t take themselves seriously, but that doesn’t make it ok. They set the joke up well, but have no punchline, rendering them utterly forgettable.

Never mind.

FUTURE GIGS

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