Panda Bear, Kurt Vile: thank you for smoking

Heaven
11 March 2010

In some danger of receiving terminal doses of reverb, the only sensible thing to do was to go to the pub between acts, so we did; thank you, smoking regulations - drifting in and out of the venue could not have been simpler. And as The Forces of Information Dispersal had made it known that there would be a 75 minute DJ set from Kode 9 between the evening's live performers, so an additional amount of proper beer could be administered. Sorry Heaven, if you ask £4 for a can of Red Stripe that has up to 15 minutes wait attached, well, there are simple solutions to that issue...

Kurt Vile was all alone for this show, and was finished by 8, which is fine as long as you have picked up the tip, but seemed unhelpfully early. He fuzzed and jangled along, with trademark loose approach to sticking to the tune - 'singing through the note', would be the jazzy term - matched in his guitar playing with either unexpected tunings or deliberately awkward chord constructions, making a kind of pleasing tuneful dissonance.

Film from Berlin concert in January, Animal Collective cover

There is a willful suspension of disbelief needed, if I may refer back to my Eng Lit studies, with AnCo related live action. The often fairly accessible songs, in fact arguably simple enough to be comparable to nursery rhymes with added electrowonk, become something darker and less structured; longer can be spent in the transition between songs than on the version of the piece itself, and patience is required for the spectacle to develop into occasional climaxes separated by burbling experimental diversions.

As with his group project, Panda Bear treats his solo live sets as a place for experimenting with songs, concentrating on as-yet unpublished new material, with only an occasional reference back to familiar territory. The songs were perhaps not deconstructed to quite the extent of an Animal Collective show, although the forthcoming album will undoubtedly be more concise and focused than the live performance, which was at times mesmerising, working well with the video projection, but also sometimes underwhelming. I look forward to the album, but would also be very interested if anyone is actually able to tell me the address of the Emperor's tailor.