When I get to The Junction at about 8:30 there is a very strange euro-techno vibe going on for this time on a Wednesday evening. The place is filling up already, people obviously knew something special was going to happen and there it is, sharing a pair of gloves (imagine THAT argument in the dressing room - no I want the left hand!) and pumping out the tunes is Dj Antoni Maiovvi Feat. Fortuna (aka singer from Hunting Lodge, Papa Molasses), presenting the Miami Beach Workout - apparently. According to the flyer anyway.
The music emanating from the laptop is slimmed down funkin techno trance electro beats and Fortuna provides occasionally rhythmical shouting that somehow seems to work. Certainly they have the ethos of the music down to a tee. It has you torn between laughing at the obviousness of it all, or banging your head to the beats and the bassline. A strange feeling, to say the least - especially as this is the first act on.
Zun Zun Egui give us psychedelic wigouts that develop into furious rock with a thin layer of jazz noodling over the top. There are strange time signatures and high pitched faux-Indian screaming. A member of the audience nearly gets a bass in the face for standing at the front. This is a great band and although the music itself is all over the place it manages to gel together nicely.
I'm not so enthused by Elliot Whale Boy, a band that seem so caught up by one particular rhythm (as heard in several Placebo songs) that they forget to vary their songs enough. Sure, it's all very complicated and tight and the fact that the singer's the only one who isn't in time or even in tune really gives them an off-kilter perspective, but there's only so long you can listen so overly-complex songs in 5/4 without yawning a little.
Barr are something quite different. A keyboard/bass/drums trio and a camp frontman who looks disturbingly like Torchwood's Captain Jack. The arrangements are sparse, and driving punk, over which the singer shouts and talks furiously, telling stories seemingly lacking in any sort of rhythm or lyrical ambition. He stalks around the stage, sticking his foot in my face at one point and taking my picture as I photograph his band-mates. It is prose with incidental music and somehow it works, strangely.
