{"id":2488,"date":"2012-12-12T07:18:22","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T07:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/?p=2488"},"modified":"2012-12-13T18:31:42","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T18:31:42","slug":"lower-dens-novo-line-swimming-lessons-brudenell-social-club-111212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/2012\/12\/12\/lower-dens-novo-line-swimming-lessons-brudenell-social-club-111212\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Dens, Novo Line, Swimming Lessons – Brudenell Social Club – 11\/12\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Another night of Sonic loveliness at the Brudenell with Baltimores ‘Lower Dens’ promoting their excellent LP ‘Nootropics’ and Leeds own ‘Swimming Lessons’ showing that it’s not just Hooky who can use a Bass as a lead guitar. ‘Novo Line’ did a very un-Oxes like set of dance music to video montage whilst dressed in a Whitney Houston tour T-shirt …….Sledge and I met Mark down there who offered to write this one up……<\/p>\n

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A freezing cold Tuesday night in December after the students have gone home for xmas is about as un-rock n\u2019roll as you can have. \u00a0Which is fair play, as tonight really wasn\u2019t rock n\u2019roll either. \u00a0In front of a select \/ discerning \/ small (delete as appropriate) crowd, we were treated to two bands of wallflowers performing art pop either side of some oddball electronica.<\/p>\n

The opening act are local lads Swimming Lessons, serving up some very fine woozy dream-pop, with possibly the most echo-laden vocals ever. \u00a0Their songs either washed around the ears of the audience, or were propelled along by a driving drumbeat that wouldn\u2019t have been out of place in some of the more out-there bands coming from West Germany in the early 1970s. \u00a0The projections behind the band emphasised this with long, drawn out shots of motorways and lampposts speeding by.<\/p>\n

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There were high hopes for tour support Novo Line, him being ex of Oxes; a band whose blend of complex instrumental weirdness and short men scaring the audience is the stuff of legend. \u00a0However, the new, electronic direction was rather disappointing. \u00a0Neither particularly danceable (though a couple of chaps did their best) nor boldly experimental, Novo Line\u2019s music was pleasantly chin-stroking, but nothing more. \u00a0The accompanying visuals could have been commenting on the essential hollowness of consumer capitalism and the increasing immediacy of nostalgia\u2026or they could have been some pictures of stuff that was cool. \u00a0Watching a bloke fiddle about with boxes with loads of leads sticking out of them isn\u2019t much of a live experience.<\/p>\n

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But then, Lower Dens aren\u2019t much of one either. \u00a0They just stand there, looking faintly embarrassed, no banter, no grand gestures. \u00a0Letting the music do the talking \u2013 even if it\u2019s music as good as this – is often cover for not having any stage presence. \u00a0The songs are either quite short & end abruptly, or quite long and droney, flowing ever onwards like a river of fuzz & distortion with Jana Hunter\u2019s rather forlorn voice bobbing about on top of it. \u00a0The films going on around them looked reminiscent of Bridget Riley\u2019s Op-Art, which fits with Lower Dens\u2019 music. \u00a0Individually, each piece is quite lovely, and when viewed overall they\u2019re pretty impressive; but the downside is that they are very much the same, and staring at it for too long can give you a massive headache. \u00a0Quite possibly they\u2019re still there, locked into an infinite groove\u2026<\/p>\n

There; 400 words and I didn\u2019t mention shoegaze, krautrock or Spacemen 3. \u00a0Quite hard, I can tell you.<\/p>\n

Mark Pomroy<\/p>\n

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Another night of Sonic loveliness at the Brudenell with Baltimores ‘Lower Dens’ promoting their excellent LP ‘Nootropics’ and Leeds own ‘Swimming Lessons’ showing that it’s not just Hooky who can use a Bass as a lead guitar. ‘Novo Line’ did … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gigs-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2503,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions\/2503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleigh-munoz.co.uk\/quims\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}