At the start of a sell-out tour to promote new album Ma Fleur, Jason Swinscoe's incredible band raised the roof with a turbo-charged rendering of music that comes across on disc as subtle and gentle.
Their opener, from their 2003 soundtrack to the Soviet silent film Man With a Movie Camera, stretched their cinematic sound from widescreen to IMAX. Mixing samples and live sound into a brew of free jazz, dance, post-rock, folk and classical, their style is hard to pin down but impossible not to love.
The new songs, propelled by Phil France's bass and the raw energy of drummer Luke Flowers, delivered a powerful emotional kick. Canadian singer Patrick Watson added atmospheric Roger Waters-like vocals.
While I couldn't recognise any Stravinsky in their encore The Rite of Spring, it had such visceral power you could easily imagine a maiden dancing herself to death to it. Hypnotic stuff.
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