Club
Lazy Genius
Featuring Discopolis, Fonetiks, Pixels and Get Back Colquitt
Monday 6th February 2012
Reviewed by
Photo by Marie Hazelwood
Emerging refreshed for 2012 to pitch up in the cosy confines of the ‘Forecast
for one night only before recommencing its season at Bumper, evergreen
new bands night Club Lazy Genius again comes up with the goods. Descending
into The Hold, Get Back Colquitt up first cram voguish Two Door Cinema
Club guitar lines and yelping emotional vocals into concise bursts of
indie pop. Early days for sure, but it is reasonable to assume the besuited
middle aged gent who pogoes for the entirety of their set may well be
joined by fellow revellers before the year is out.
Pixels on next conjour up what the NME used to call ‘new pop’
in the early eighties when the post-punk hordes (ABC, Associates) smartened
up sartorially and sonically and began to produce highly polished mechanised
pop. An intriguing prospect, their songs played without interruption mark
them out as slick live performers even at this early stage.
Fonetiks’ eighteen-month apprenticeship on the city’s gig
circuit sees them pull the biggest crowd of the night as they hammer out
their set, reshaping it as they go along. Vicious
Sirens scream-if-you-wanna-go-faster intro begins proceedings,
effortlessly setting out their stall, electronica meets rock done louder.
With their florid back projections working beautifully in perfect harness
with the dialogue samples, The Hold becomes a miasma of colour, the shadowy
figures of the three people on stage twisting and turning the music whichever
it suits them.
A whirl of dance/rock/indie and all points that lie in between, as far
as genre demarcations go Fonetiks shove the musical boundary handbook
through a paper shredder, retrieve it and make it into a fetching piece
of origami. As visceral as live music live can get, Sounds
Like is splintered into a thousand different pieces and assiduously
reassembled as it progresses, a feat topped only by a dazzling new number
thrown in towards the end which sees the trio edging towards neo-psychedelia.
Out of towners Discopolis (pictured) surfing in on praise from NME and
Pete Tong have a certain weight of expectation riding on them even before
their Korg synths are powered up. Opting for classic Kraftwerk style minimalism
with just the players and their keyboards lined up onstage, the Glaswegian
trio’s undulating electronic motifs and softly sung vocals beguile
rather than stun.
Expertly rendered live, the beats crisp, the guitar lines sharp, the
synths washing over the ears like a warm wave, after the belligerent determination
of Fonetiks, Discopolis’ precision tooled pop doesn’t make
quite the same connection. Young enough to look like they would struggle
to be served on the premises, Lofty Ambitions
serves notice of their nascent song writing talent even if their live
show may lag slightly further behind.
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