Mum And Dad

“I’m hoping to see something strange tonight. I wanna see something new and different. Do you reckon I'm gonna get it?” barks a drunken mancunian across the table from me in the cosy John Willie Lees club. He’s spent the last half hour or so voicing his concern to me about the lack of challenging and daring new acts in the UK who aren’t afraid of a little experimentation, even dismissing John Peel as sucking up to the BBC by playing ‘mainstream rubbish’. I turn to him and smile. If he wants challenging experimentation and daringly dirty keyboard effects than he’s come to the right place.

Y’see, Mum & Dad are the kind of band you either love or hate. Their self-titled debut album, released 6th May via Twisted Nerve, is a head-spinning mesh of obscure decadent swirls of noise, neu-electro pop and swirls of vocalist Clair Pearson’s echoey magic floating in amongst bizarre fairyland imagery. Yet, there’s something so very intriguing about M&D’s warped psyche that compelled me to come and witness such tortuous beauty up close.

And what better place than Club Suicide? An unpredictable, uncommercial, unashamedly rocking environment that’s unlike anything you will have ever been to before, Club Suicide is renowned for hosting the most off-the-wall acts that Manchester’s ever seen. A home for all the weird electronic freaks and gutter punks it’s no surprise that by the time Mum & Dad step onto the small stage in the corner of the room at 11:40pm the place is full to the rafters with such folk and, admittedly, the cool, hip and ‘with it’ Manchester crowd, as usual.

Starting off with the second single off the album ‘Dawn Rider’ is a twisted, blurry eyed bass-led journey inspired by the amphetamine-fuelled ritualism of Northern Soul all-nighters. It’s a cool opener that lets Clair’s silhouette twist and turn in front of the images being projected behind her. And because every song has a different story and theme different images are used to reflect them such as the summery feel of ‘Six Week Holiday’ that follows.

All in all six tracks are aired and lapped up by the throng present tonight including ‘Easy Peasy’, which sounds like Gomez being played through a piano underwater and the homage to Heavy Metal, ‘Donnington’, complete with footage of the monsters of rock festival projected behind the group. Ace.

I wasn’t sure how they’d do it but they managed to pull off the atmosphere created on the album and prove to that Mancunian bloke that when it comes to destroying the mediocrity and blandness of modern pop music Mum & Dad rule the roost.