JayEtAl

As tonight’s performance suggests, Tri-City President are a soft-rock band, but only in the way that Bloc Party would be if they played at half the volume, with twice the intensity, and weren’t so consistently bloody optimistic about stuff. But, well, better than that sounds. We’re not really hoping for quiet to be the new loud to be the new quiet etc. but each brush-stroked drumbeat and plucked string tugs upon the listener, dainty like hailstones dropping onto eardrums, crawling beneath the skin and making you feel thankful for it. They can also do that slow-burning post-rock thing but with more stealth and, by the time a screwdriver is set loose on the guitar strings, squeakier consequences. Which is great, y’know.

Seeing as Cathode Ray Mission start proceedings with a song called ‘Someday Soon I’ll Tell The NME To Fuck Off’, you can tell instantly the sort of polemic/ambition involve. Singer Dan Copeman rambles vitriolically about said rag, involuntarily covers the first few rows in spittle and starts dancing like small, furry creatures are trying to get intrusive on his ass (literally). Like most of the best post-punk bands, and a lot of pre-punk ones for that matter, they sound like they’re going to collapse at any moment, going from the bass-driven dark-hearted dance-dance-dance-dance-dance-to-the-radio passages and then suddenly thrashing about like the world’s about to explode and they might as well do some shouting and racket-making for a sense of catharsis. Their songs are as epic as anything this shambolic could aspire to be, or, in other words, they can’t play. But they’re really very good at not being able to play. Cool. Get them a bigger stage to do jittery movements on, and step on it.

At the beefier side of things, though, JayEtAl seem to have a sort of formula about them but it’s one that’s made me adore them. First, make the Apple Mac (and those shiny objects with big buttons on) produce bleepy bloopy boing-boom-tchak noises and add on a voice that’s been vocodered into oblivion, like Kraftwerk genuinely trying to petrify you. Then start plucking atmospherically at a guitar so that 65daysofstatic start to watch their backs, and add on some synth-o-rama that the recent/current ‘80s revival would pride itself in if it was having fun rather than preening itself. Then, once all that’s stretched elastically and mozzarella-style over the processed beats, get the live drums to pound in like the hands are controlling the brain and not vice-versa, and watch the crowd either throw mad shapes or bask in the wonder of it all. That’s electronica marvellousness right there. Make sure you’re freaky dancing when the revolution comes.