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Live Review
by SashaS
19-12-2003
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More on: Pretty Girls Make Graves
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| Pretty Girls Makes Graves: no ill-effect |
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Live: Pretty Girls Make Graves
Mean Fiddler, London
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
PGMG conquer flu and recommend Kaito
If any of the disappointed fans from the Pretty Girls Make Graves’ postponed shows in Manchester and Nottingham were here tonight, it’d be difficult to fathom that this girl was suffering with a flu over the past several days. No ill-effects visible whatsoever and we all wish we knew the secret how to conquer the ‘damn-bug’ in a matter of days.
Andrea Zollo, who arrives on stage with armful of bottled waters she’d continually and copiously drink, has no problem projecting and performing: her voice is so clear, pristine, like a solitary flute on a crispy and snowy Christmas morning. That’s at the beginning, later on she gets into more ‘combat’ mode; the show is paced to glide in on a slower, more emo-vibe, more songwriter’s kind of a vision before erupting with punkish fury toward the end.
Promoting the current album ‘The New Romance’, this Seattle-based quintet rides on a idiosyncratic idiom, that spreads and reaches wide and far over the genres. There are really no PGMG rules [doubt they even have a notebook] and artistic freedom and spirit is its sonic currency. They announce few tracks’ names- ‘The Grandmother Wolf’, ‘All Medicated Geniuses’, (former single) ‘It’s Our Emergency’ - but the in-between-songs banter gets concerned with our dismal television [passionately dissed by bassist Derek Fudesco who had to be subjected to it during Zollo’s illness] and the singer’s praising our health system. [You must have gone private, girl, if NHS treated - you’d be even sicker!]
With music language spreading from punk to post-rockist, PGMG are an outfit that brings new hope to desensitised music lovers. PGMG may be named after The Smiths’ tune and, although they provide head-time songs, this ain’t no miseribalism per se. A tad cautious show, perhaps, due to the fragile health but nevertheless - rocking the Astoria’s basement.
Zollo, extra marks for the won’t-let-you-down spirit, also found a moment to praise the supporting band, Kaito, telling us that “we are lucky to have them.” And, the Norwich foursome turn out to be a revelation; recently signed to Blast First and with freshly released EP - that will unfortunately be lost in this Chrimbo-crap madness - offer delightful promise.
The two girl-two boy outfit are led by lissom Nikki Colk of dark dress and a delicate voice [perhaps road will give it more body], with a guitarist who is on an experimental-freako. Dave Lake’s six-string noises are of the kind you find Sonic Youth [or Will Sergeant if he were allowed free reign in the vintage Echo and the Bunnymen days] favour, although the band’s basic sound is loosely related to the New Wave period.
The Wave that was 15 years before, often cited when Kaito is reviewed, Elastica; the truth is more like having Justine in the same room with the Pixies and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Public Image Ltd popping in and a ghostly visit by Talking Heads for a tad of funkiness… Plethora of influences have nicely morphed into something really special and songs like ‘Try Me Out’ travel vast distances to cacophony and back to sanity, while the EP’s lead track ‘Should I’ is a shouty little punkoid-but-catchy ditty.
Kaito, or Kait0 as they like to spell it, have already had debut album, ‘Band Red’, released in the US in May 2003 that will not reach these shores until early 2004. [Over there, they are known as Kaito U.K. due to some techno-DJ, or similar copyright bull.]
On tonight’s showing, Kait0 may not trouble the charts regularly but will keep plenty of alterna-kids, and few kidults, more than happy way past the dismal Festive season.
SashaS
19-12-2003
Pretty Girls Make Graves’ album ‘The New Romance’ is available now on Matador
Kaito’s EP is available now on Blast First/Mute
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