“Well, the boys in the Christmas land.”
What a special time of year this has proven to be: two of the most notable underground bands in London came together in a one-off collaboration charity show at Brixton’s Windmill.
Once rivalling one another over the past year, now joining forces in what was a highly-anticipated sold-out show evolving this intimate, local pub into a crammed, raucous event - putting right such premature wrongs of ‘rock (supposedly) being dead’. Having reviewed both of these bands in their respective gigs this year, this was one show which came to be a fortuitous last-minute Christmas present, from me to myself.
Situated where many of their careers began, the supergroup band ultimately convened on-stage with barely an announcement or uttering to the gathered crowd, intently traversing through experimental riffing and soloing for the ensuing hour. It was within these intimate, unseen-before jamming sessions and spurrings in which many of us began to appreciate this unique experience - something which wouldn’t be replicated again in the future but purely presented before our very own eyes and ears.
Yet for even the most obscure art-rock bands of London, classic Christmas covers weren’t beneath them as recitals of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, and Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas’ played their parts in tonight’s multifarious festivities. Whilst the singing prowess of either singers this evening couldn’t quite match the delicate heights of their forebears, the in-tune crowd ultimately supported this chorus of festive euphoria like the giddy kids of junior school bellowing their favourite end-of-term, anthemic singalongs.
Capitalising upon this euphoria, the newly-found band aptly gave a nod to their post-punk contemporaries, with a Christmas-inspired cover of Fontaines D.C.’s ‘Boys in the Better Land’. Engrossed in their ethereal experimentation, the band wildly journeyed through frenetic tones and solos brought together by the fray of four guitarists, three singers, two drummers, and an eclectic crowd in a pear tree.
Amidst such a melting pot of genres, from free jazz, to spoken word, to art-rock, tracks of Black Midi and Black Country, New Road, were at last showcased toward the tail end of this evening’s proceedings - namely the seminal singles of this year ‘Sunglasses’ and ‘Ducter’. With the former conjuring such hyperactive saxophone spasms and the latter hypnotically accentuating such off-beat rhythmics, both tracks brewed toward such turmoiled crescendos propelling us into another ether of psychedelic euphoria.
As if the conclusion to tonight’s set loomed all the more precarious within this lofty ether, this unorthodox supergroup amassed an equally unorthodox cover of Bing Crosby’s seminal track ‘Dreaming of a White Christmas’, almost 80 years after its initial release. A true-blue sign of the times with this emphatic conclusion on the 2010s, none of us in attendance could scarcely think of a better way to close out such a pivotal moment in time buried within the darkened depths of Brixton’s Windmill.
From two of the most noteworthy bands of this year, this never-before-seen collaboration ultimately proved to be one of the best gigs of 2019. Inevitably incorporating a myriad of genres and sounds, many of their sonic inspirations conjured themselves tonight: from Krautrock’s electrifying Can, to jazz's frenetic Miles Davis, to art-rock’s dynamic Talking Heads. Yet this last-minute Christmas miracle lived up to its expectations, transforming this quietened pub into a voracious evening consuming such sonic worlds - for which I feel as stuffed as a post-Christmas feast. But I will certainly be back in the new year, ready and raring to go.
9/10
Black Midi's latest LP, Schlagenheim, is out now and can be found here.
Black Country New Road's latest single, Sunglasses, is out now and can be found here.
All photos are courtesy of Thom Melograna whose work can be found here.
All proceeds for the show went to The Brixton Soup Kitchen, donations can be made here.
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