Towards the end of a long evening that began with a brutal traffic accident outside the venue, middled with someone in the audience collapsing and ended with a wondering performance from the Castanets in a venue lit only by two UV lights and a tiny, trailing spotlight, lead Castanet Ray Raposa articulates the general mood, accurately identifying the presence of “weird vibes”.
All the weirder for the strength of the line-up: five very cool bands crammed into a very uncool time limit. The Phoenix, at the best of times dingy and cramped, tonight feels more oppressively dark than usual, the square room with its tinny sound system compressing the atmosphere to something approximating a damp claustrophobia. Opening act Sparky Deathcap is the first to try to puncture the gloom, his careful finger-picked folk belying his status as the only English act on the bill, appearing more indebted to the current wave of North American indie-folk revivalists than any of the bands playing tonight supposedly on the crest of said wave. Nevertheless, his music has a studied melancholy to it that suits the occasion; with a banjo he sounds like 16 Horsepower minus the aggressive religiosity.
If Sparky Deathcap’s understated performance was suited to the status of introductory act, HRSTA’s sound is far more demanding. The group have all the post-rock trimmings you’d expect of a band that includes a founding member of Godspeed - soaring, tense guitars accompanied by a supporting cast of screwdrivers and e-bows. Like A Silver Mount Zion, the squawked vocals create a pleading sense of unease; like every other act on stage tonight the intensity of the performance suggests a longer set would better play into the hands of music that asks to be teased out rather than hurried.
With regards to Carla Boluzich, intensity would be an understatement. Dressed like a gothic, Victorian schoolchild come back to haunt the audience for their sins, she stalks the crowd looking for men to pirouette with in the gap between band and cross-legged crowd. Her aggressive boundary-questioning comes paired with some equally off-kilter music: wailing, despairing vocals pitched over fairground synths. Hunched, with a wide, buttoned-up collar, she walks in circles; seeming at best restless, at worst angry, she complains about her poor pay and the audiences’s passivity, unappreciative of Manchester’s lack of a predilection towards mid-gig hauntings.
Phosphorescent seems immeasurably more attuned to our sensibilities, coming adorned with a jacket covered with fairy lights. Squinting creates the appearance of a glowing coat, crooning with a voice like a more-ethereal Will Oldham and a less-eager Jason Anderson, warm and friendly like nothing else on the bill tonight. With the assistance of a loop pedal, closing song ‘Endless Pt.2’ blossoms into a graceful chorus of heartfelt sighs, the night’s most human, touching moment.
Castanets would at first appear to be the best bridge between the admirable ferocity of HRSTA and Boluzich and Phosphorescent’s less assaultive alt-country. However, an improvised, meandering set results in a sound more cerebral than their atmospheric, lyrical songs deserve; their best moment comes with a romping Viking Moses! cover that gives itself up to the vibes, rather than try to fight them with more wayward noise.
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Share on Facebookcastanets were soooooooo dull
and i missed hrsta because of stupid trains... booooooo :(
phosphorescent
was by far the best act on the night. beautiful stuff.
castanets didn't really turn up for me. i thought they were awesome on their last tour, though.
coming back to haunt you
god i'm excited to write you, it's the perfect distraction from booking yet another 3 1/2 month tour. ummmmm, ok. let's see. manchester is 10,467 kilometers from my home. we (2 bands---- INCLUDING HRSTA) found out before we went on stage we were getting paid 25 pounds TOTAL. the van and driver cost 140 pounds per day. we were not fed nor given anything free to drink. we drove many hours to get there. we were denied a soundcheck which caused serious problems onstage. i have been touring strictly for the love of music and for people who love music for 15 years. i live so sparsely you would wince, just so i can afford this expensive habit of bringing you my love and music and throwing down some REAL soul for people when we awkwardly stumble upon eachother. it is up to them what they do with the short time we are sharing a room together while evangelista is onstage because they will never see it again. we never do the same show twice.
the audience sat or layed on the floor talking loud and trying not to care. you say i was unappreciative of "Manchester’s lack of a predilection towards mid-gig hauntings".. do you think you have the perspective to speak for the predilections of your entire beautiful, diverse city? that crowd, yeah, most of them, but please, sir... plus by speaking for manchester's underground music scene this way, you are inadvertently painting many great cities, like london, paris, brussels, vienna, lisbon, nyc, etc as having inferior tastes when they welcome us so warmly----or perhaps it's ettiquette these other cities lack? what with me "stalking the crowd looking for men to piroette with"---whoa---piroetting in a public place. some of my fav people live in manchester and thanks to some great people at the show you reviewed, my next gig in manchester was super satisfying in a bitchen church. here's the thing, sam----- i pay attention to the audience. the audience is part of the show for me. it's not intentional---it's just the way music works for me. that's why i'm a shitty solo artist. i like to collaborate.
there's always people that don't like my music. it's kooky music and you have to want to get inside it, i think. when you're on the wrong bill it's always much worse, of course. but i would never say your whole town is just into music that is "warm and friendly"----you actually use the term, our sensibilities when explaining the preference. admittedly, we were badly paired for that bill, as the music is really dark---- but castenets are our friends and hrsta opened the whole 8 week tour with us. did i sidle up to a guy and sing hard into his face? yeah baby and i think he probably heard me calling out. maybe he never had anyone sing straight to him like that. maybe he'll put it under his cap and it'll help him remember he is special. or maybe it's just not his thing..... i have a sneaking suspicion it was kinda cool. it would be for me. not you. me. no i didn't appreciate the crowd that nite. i respect the right for anyone to choose what they like but if you think a woman like me would be more pleasant if i kept my yap shut about it forget it. i'm not tryin to win fans who don't like my kinda stuff. i'm looking for friends that could see the rub of a night like that if it unfolded in front of them. i'm looking for people that click. see you in april. i know you'll be there sam---somewhere in the back, no doubt cuz it's possible there's gonna be some "boundary questioning" that night. i'm gonna sing to you, sam. xo
ps---i thought phosphorescent was the best thing that night, too.
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