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Live Review
by SashaS
9-4-2003
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| Annette Strean of Venus Hum is from Mars |
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Live: Venus Hum
Metro Club, London
Saturday, March 8, 2003
Venus Hum: celestial-targeting with cyber-sharp tones
As far as Tennessee-based Venus Hum are concerned, the Western world’s cultural legacy are influences that all flow into one cauldron to be mixed into a sonic potion that reflects human life while looking at the stars. Welcome to the ‘Big Beautiful Sky’, an album of music that will leave you breathless and, in a concert encounter – with your gob wide in a combo of wonderment and uplifting smile.
The amount of keyboards, computers and gadgets displayed is greater than if Rick Wakeman and Jean-Michelle Jarre were gigging together but this is not electro-music for the post-apocalyptic age. The organic element in this cyber-feast is on equal footing with a violinist/keyboardist/electro-pads percussionist on the current tour augmenting the creative trio. Tony Miracle plays guitar as well, Kip Kubin is on the other synth in support.
And to a greater end, a musical scope that in a live situation relishes in re-creating studio recordings with a different slant: the album cuts are more controlled, quieter, slickly honed, while it is more vivid, more urgent, more energetic onstage, it slaps you with power you can’t shake off for while. (Er, you don’t want to, naturally.) The brill thing is seeing the members enjoy playing as much as fans abandoning themselves to the audacious ‘coloratura’. Although based on electro-axes, the band’s sonic wealth is far from being rutted in the all-too-obvious Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys mould so many critics mention.
The band’s new single, ‘Montana’, is a catchy little choon of a disco-pop variety that should raid the charts, if there could ever be justice in this hype-infested market. The trouble is that it is a very rare moment when this group displays this kind of radio-friendly knack because their preference is experimental, ambient, funky, industrial, ethereal, out-there-yet-soulful songs. One’s impression is that the overall ambition of Venus Hum is freedom an album allows rather than the narrow populist margins singles require.
Annette Strean doesn’t simply sing as much as she acts her vocals, taking us up and down the emotional scale, serving insights into a realm that is sidestepping the ‘down-with-the-kids’ ploy. With their instrumental setting you’d expect to hear minimalism but this is more orchestral than if a string quartet were backing them! Luscious, sensual, ‘kinky’… If Miró were a composer instead of a painter, he could have dropped ‘Beautiful Spain’, ‘Springtime #2’ takes you deep into the feelings you’ve been neglecting for years, ‘Alice’ makes you want to be taken by the hand and introduced… ‘Sonic Boom’ simply disengages your mind and grabs hold of your arse… pardon – muscles!
Strean, the Julie Andrews look-alike with glasses, is renown for kooky retro-kitsch dress sense and doesn’t disappoint with a 1950s pink eve-gown (complete with a matching plastic belt) and a grandma-like shawl she wore at the beginning. The mike stand is adorned with silk-leaves (pot-kind, perhaps?) adding more charm to the whole set-up. It gets brave and confusing, Strean reminds of Björk fronting Garbage one moment, Tori Amos working with Human League (produced by Giorgio Moroder) the next, followed by a touch of Burt Bacharach-ism before a (stage) musical-atmo is offered, then cabaret (pre-Nazi Berlin), a 1960s pop-dom, a gypsy-like violin riff…
Look at the sky, stick the album in a player and book yourself for a date with... a feral show! A definite stress-buster, mood-shifter and anti-chart blandness, Venus Hum guarantee!
Tour dates (remaining):
09 April – Chinnerys, Southend
10 April – The Void, Stoke-on-Trent
13 April – Princess Charlotte, Leicester
14 April – Soundhaus, Northampton
15 April – Arts Centre, Norwich
17 April – Lava, Aberdeen
18 April – Cathouse, Glasgow
19 April – The Venue, Edinburgh
SashaS
2-5-2003
Venus Hum’s album ‘Big Beautiful Sky’ is released 05 May 2003 on BMG
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