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If anyone ever utters the term “Lilith” with respect to ELECTRELANE (for their music or personage), be sure to administer a well-placed knee to the balls. And odds are extremely good that such a patronizing attitude would be coming from someone with (now mashed) testicles. Once the blue shade has left their face, explain that bands like UT and THE SLITS are a more appropriate hole in which to stuff this particular pigeon.
Originating in Brighton, England but now spread out in four separate locales, Electrelane’s been filling the sort of void that a guitar-fixated STEREOLAB without Gallic vocals or leftist politics (as far as I can tell) would fill, along with a much more ingrained focus on plain rocking out—no pomo faces on these women.
Indeed, the rocking out tonight was served up by reaching back to the debut Rock It To The Moon for “UOR” and “Blue Straggler,” but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, as “Bells” from Axes was the first song up and the smashing keyboard crescendos that VERITY SUSMAN pounded out against the serene motorik rhythm (serene, that is, until guitarist MIA CLARKE started to flay apart the song with slashing guitar) perfectly encapsulated their sound.
This sound got tossed about as Verity (now sporting a pageboy cut, and no longer looking like MEG BAIRD’s cousin) swapped between keyboards (contributing an especially haunting Farfisa-tone) and guitar, going back and forth with Mia’s guitar mantra explosions. All of this was subtly anchored by the elastic rhythm section of ROS MURRAY and drummer EMMA GAZE. Electrelane’s musical tide, the constant ebb and flow of the song structures, was reassuring and not same-y in the least; eventually the flow would overtake the ebb, and the song would be carried over the top in one violent crest, a point made both visually and aurally when Mia left her stage front position, went to rear of the stage, and scraped her guitar neck across the edge of the amplifier in a howling, feedback-laden frenzy. When this stylistic approach is strapped to such strong songs as “In Berlin” from the latest and excellent LP No Shouts, No Calls, Electrelane shows they are capable of hitting peaks that most bands can’t. Their closing cover of BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’s “I’m On Fire” also stood as a statement of fact.
Opener THE BLOW was a type of act I’d never really been exposed to before, but that was certainly not the case for others in the room. I’d say a good third of the crowd was there specifically there to see KHAELA MARICICH do her mishmash of standup comedy, karaoke party, dance dance revolution paroxysms, and general soul-baring.
Onetime-partner JONA BECHTOLT is no longer present; he’s off opening for LCD SOUNDSYSTEM with his new project YACHT, but Kaela amply filled the stage, alternately spinning amazingly funny stories and then breaking into dance steps while singing her songs over canned breakbeats, which were often follow-ups to her spiel. It seriously took me just up until the chorus to place her cover of THE POLICE’s “Every Breath You Take.” Very entertaining, and I can see how she’s accumulated such a devoted following. It’s normally not my kind of thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
