Team Brick started off the evening with a half hour set of singing into a guitar delay pedal and looping harmonies over each other. Interesting stuff, quite funny and well performed. After that was a band whose name I can't remember. They were OK.
Leafcutter John was the real reason people were here and he played to a packed house. The incessant buzzing that threatened the start of the set led to an impromptu acoustic performance of a track that I guess would be titled, "There’s a buzzing in my head" which set the mood of playfulness for the evening. After the noise had been traced to the pesky laptop power supply the show stared proper, with Johns masterful MAX/MSP DSP manipulation of sounds of scraping objects captured via a very nice looking large diaphragm mic (perhaps a Neumann?) The multilayered sounds looping over each over, slowly building a warm sounding, heavily textured blanket of audio. Pre-prepared sections of audio made the tracks identifiable, mostly as songs from "The Housebound Spirit" album, as well as new material and, I think, some of the older stuff too.
At several points the music was brought to a stop and John would talk about the next piece, explaining where some of the sounds in it were originally recorded and telling related anecdotes. The piece with the sounds recorded in a forest, which it was realised too late was predominantly the sound of everybody else “getting the fuck out before it got dark” was particularly good, and allowed for some miming of screaming children on bikes trying to escape.
Despite all the fun, few people seemed prepared for the electric breasts. After wondering off stage and allowing a track to end people started to wonder what was going on. John's T-shirt was then thrown across the stage from somewhere out of sight and he returned to his laptops wearing a fetching satin bra which he proceeded to mount a couple of transducers in. This was used to trigger samples by waving magnets at the "breasts". Many strange and bizarre noises were created as he gyrated around tweaking his virtual nipples. The suggestion of audience participation in this scared all but the most drunken members of the audience, which rather than try to describe I will allow the photographs to speak for themselves, see below.
The set was then finished off with a medley of vocal tracks, John singing along with recorded versions of his vocals, bringing a beautiful and slightly melancholy end to an astounding set. This was the third time I've seen a Leafcutter John live performance and every time there has been something unique and interesting about it, never miss an opportunity to experience this for yourself.
Photos by Dan:
