Just as life itself would be substantially enhanced were we all living in an endless ATP, Sunday lunchtime too is irrevocably enriched by a
Godspeed You! Black Emperor show, especially one that today crams a lifetime's worth of emotivity into just shy of two utterly exhausting hours. Just as your average grease-dosed chip shop fayre encompasses ruddy saveloys and indiscriminate gristle battered and bruised, GY!BE utilise every hallmark of the post-rock genre to its enervating, yet equally thrilling full, emotion-shocked potential as trumpets blare, grief-stricken strings ring out over a sense of growing panic, and dual bass guitars duel to crescendo. Alleged devotees to the concepts of mobocracy, the octet arrange their own gear and cautiously position their individual liquor hordes, before sauntering on to minimal fanfare, as the sepia blare of Morricone is exchanged for the ominous throb of Hope Drone. For the following while, visuals spanning 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' to the distressingly demonic (suitable given the infernal climes within the gloomy West Hall) are triggered as Efrim Menuck and Mike Moya clunk at guitar strings with screwdrivers, the troupe conducted almost by David Bryant who sits with his back turned to the baying drove throughout. You find your mind drifting in and out of consciousness at a similar rate to that at which they exhume discernible melody from their instrumental anguish, and in the wake of the ebbing melancholia of Chart #3, World Police and Friendly Fire, East Hastings, and Gathering Storm it's implausible to feel anything but forlorn following an early afternoon with the Montreal nervous system assaulters.
Continuing to wreak substantial havoc off the back of Sisterworld,
Liars once again entrance, Angus Andrew's face obscured by his moppish locks throughout. Alongside Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross, the Antipodean trio thunder through an abrasive, overtly percussive It Fit When I Was A Kid, before being joined by a couple of fellow inner ear bruisers on bass and guitar/keys for a superlatively clunky No Barrier Fun and scatty Here Comes All The People, Hemphill's tinny, compresed Jazzmaster jangle sounding typically akin to feline dismemberment. Loose Nuts on the Velodrome and Plaster Casts of Everything feature as nods to the once-excessively tumultuous outfit's rather more tumultuous past and whilst the looming air of volatility and destruction has dwindled somewhat, the lackadaisical gallop of Scissor and rapturous disco leanings of Proud Evolution offer quite rousing moments.
The juxtaposition of the above noiseniks and Baltimore dreamweavers
Beach House is disconcerting, yet there's delight in the disconcertion despite leaden sound beleaguering both. Amidst a blizzard of dry ice Victoria Legrand's androgynous, gelid vocals sound sublime, reverberating about the grandiose expanse as if it were an arctic cavern. Their familiar Northern Lights-esque backdrop and glowing beacons too contribute to the only chill factor within the oversized greenhouse that is the Great Hall. The breathy Norway isn't dedicated to said country, despite devastating recent affairs although Legrand does later attempt to reconcile the contrast of joy and bereavement in the world as she fills vacuous silences with chatter, silences in which accomplice Alex Scally frantically lines up drum machine loops, most notably those of a particularly rudimentary persuasion contained within the few new slabs of brilliance aired this afternoon. Walk In The Park, 10 Mile Stereo, and opener Zebra meanwhile are tantamount to the weekend's most pristine pop instances.
Anything but pop are, or indeed were, Pete Wareham's
Acoustic Ladyland who bring, or rather brought, acerbic sax-led salvo to the Panorama Room for their final ever show under the Hendrix-indebted moniker. They are to arise like a radiant phoenix from ashen embers as Silver Birch, which happens to be the name of the first tune they rattle through. Somewhat less rabid than the funk raucous of Gratitude and The Mighty Q (during which an impromptu balloon invasion is staged as rubber is ripped from overhead), the future will indubitably be equally lunatic, although today is based upon celebration, Seb Rochford banging the drums as if his Vic Firth sticks formed his fingers and his minimal skins his thighs, practically falling from his chair with every thud as his kit gradually comes undone to a perfectly psychotic Iggy. Like the ferocious spirit and sound of punk filtered through the alcohol-infused mind of Gerry Rafferty, one can but hope this isn't the last we hear of the ardent aggression of much of the genre-bending back catalogue...
Swimming against the wave upon wave of noise that Swans whip up and pummel against the walls of the West Hall is "Political Journalist"-cum-Geoff Barrow protégé
Anika who, backed by Billy Fuller and Matt Williams of Beak>, rustles up her own dub-flavoured commotion from behind an intense and impactful exterior. Yep, her baritone drone and striking looks are highly reminiscent of Nico, but it's reworkings of Skeeter Davis' End Of The World and The Kinks' I Go To Sleep that intrigue especially, all eyes remaining transfixed on the slender, siren-like figure stage-centre that nonchalantly delivers prickly, reverb-soused vocals with the seemed reluctance of a teenager ensnared at home on babysitting duty whilst Lee "Scratch" Perry rattles windows down the road. The menacing, equally gaunt figure of Nick Cave then takes to the muggy microclimate within the Great Hall with his
Grinderman henchmen in tow, No Pussy Blues kicking like a sex-starved mule. Whether hurling himself onto the barrier, clambering through the front few rows or growling atop the hypnotic bass of Mickey Bloody Mouse, this is probably what George III's descent into grim madness looked like first-hand.
Déjà vu then ensues, as
Portishead once again take to the Great Hall, twenty-four hours after they first ambled onstage. They could quite conceivably be attired in the same apparel as the previous evening, Barrow's changed t-shirt the only discernible difference spotted. Similarly there's minimal differentiation between Saturday and Sunday setlists, with both unfortunately devoid of B-side integration despite the I'll Be Your Mirror label deriving from the All Tomorrow's Parties flipside. However this time around every noirish guitar chink is significantly more imposing, Gibbons' vox far more acute, akin to pricked acupuncture needles painlessly piercing roseate flesh, the cotton-like softness and deftness of it all exponentially amplified. A disconsolate Hunter, a most welcome addition, follows Silence, whilst the relentless electronica pulse of Chase The Tear is spontaneously culled following approximately six false starts, Barrow and drummer Clive Deamer never quite in sync. Another show dripping in triumph and jubilation, every digit of everyone in attendance must surely be intertwined in eager hope and hunger for LP4.
When booking an act for the graveyard shift (this particular one being 11.20pm on a Sunday) it's indisputably best to opt for one that could stun the departed into vigorous motion and whilst
Caribou may not be capable of resurrecting the perished, it's almost too facile to parallel Dan Snaith with Christ: he performs shoeless; he is, invariably, aesthetically resplendent all in white; he boasts a supernatural intelligence. And whilst many will have already seen him as many times as Jesus ever encountered his disciples, it's still an undiluted thrill to catch him recreate his calculated yet fluid, ne'er transparent trance vibe in the live setting. Balloons torn from the ceiling of the Panorama Room bound about atop students and slackers (myself included) in scenery as wondrously discombobulating as the first time you ever experienced blobs of rubber drifting in and out of strobe to the sound of The Soft Bulletin. Circular Swim visuals whirr and warp behind a silhouetted Snaith, as the lugubrious harmonies of Kaili and Lalibela are spliced together with the psych ebullience of Andorra cuts After Hours, Niobe and Melody Day. Leave House bristles with cabasa magnetism, with woodblock vibrance, whilst Jamelia provides perhaps the weekend's most celestial three minutes-plus. Odessa,
one of the tracks of last year, and indeed any year, precedes a majestically extended Sun as Snaith et al. conclude summertime touring commitments, before returning to curate what's sure to be a bitter Sunday at
ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas come December in the midst of Butlins-based licentiousness. In the meantime forget the fields, for a greater estival existence awaits through the 'Mirror atop a distant North London hill...
