It Sounded Better In My Head

It's not that often I'll travel to other cities for a gig these days. Living in London, I'm used to having great gigs served up by bands from around the world, nightly - rather than the problem of a band not touring to my town, there's usually the less bothersome problem of which gig to go to from three or four options. But now and then, it's just got to be done. The lineup for the first "It Sounded Better In My Head" night was just unmissable.
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<b>Pagan Wanderer Lu</b> plays first, and I guess I can't talk about him to much as he's releasing his debut 7" on Brainlove Records as you read this. But suffice to say, I am reminded of why I wanted to work with him in the first place - intelligent, wise, world-weary lyrics show a songwriter of astonishing wit and wisdom (think a more political and less sex-obsessed Jarvis Cocker). The melodies and instrumentation are just as engaging, from clanging electric piano and tip-tapping Groovebox beats, to beep-zap-echo effects units and electric guitar, often all played at once in a dextrous musical tightrope manoeuvre.
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<b>:(</b>, or <b>colonopenbracket</b> are a very divisive band - people either love their histrionic, emo 8-bit bitcore sound, or find it intolerable. I fucking love it. The songs are pure pop, with a teenaged, mid-Atlantic whine of a vocal that I'd probably hate if it were sung over the usual 4-4 verse-chorus guitar band. But the incongruity of the two elements makes for a fantastically post-modern kind of fun. Emo that you can dance to! All that over-the-top nasal squawking, over tinny beats and beep-hop structures of the finest order. Live, they (disappointingly) have a live drummer, and have drafted in two girls who pretend to play computer keyboards while the singer hops around with his Trent Reznor hair and does his flailing, mic-gripping, tight trousered stage antics. Not quite as engaging as on record, for sure - they still have some work to do to get right the balance between being a backing track band and a live stage show.
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<b>Germlin</b> has no such problems. Having long ago abandoned any pretensions at being a 'live' band, he hits play on the backing track and then proceeds to totally fucking freak out for the next 20 minutes like he's having 10,000 volts run through his body. Whether bouncing across the floor on his heels, teeth bared and screaming to his searingly fast 8-bit laptop breakcore, or crawling on his belly and twitching like an epileptic to booming, fucked-up mutant gabba, Germlin live is a brilliant spectacle. Too-fast, too-loud, too-stupid, too-clever - this is electronic music risen from the grave and flown into space by one of the most brilliant and imaginative electronic musicians currently working, anywhere.
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<b>Trademark</b> are an out-and-out pop band that will win the heart of any child of the 80's. Singer Oli looks like a young David Bowie, prowling the front of the stage with his twitchy, quirky body movements and plaintive vocals over the crisp synth backing of his two similarly besuited bandmates. Their songs are about love and loss, relationships starting and ending, but put through a unique storytelling filter fused together with digital references, icy vocodered choruses and pounding drums. They finish on 'Interim', a genuine diamond-in-the-rough lost pop classic that should really have smashed into the charts a long time ago.
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I doubt there'll be a lineup with quite as much imagination and class as this all year.