OCTA | LIVE REVIEW
Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Sat 4 Apr
Call it my highly specific local gigging bias if you will, but seeing any bands of a certain indie/electronic ilk, like those fantastically programmed at Octa in Sherman last weekend, in a theatre feels unavoidably odd. Featuring Cardiff electro/postpunk/alt luminaries such as Rhodri Brooks & Eugene Capper, Gwenno and Y Pencadlys – acts who I’ve enjoyed numerous times across smaller venues – when walking into either of the two theatre spaces, my natural inclination is to feel the sheer theatricality and largeness of the space as jarring for a gig of this kind.
I’m used more to losing myself in a small crowd with the protective cloak of rhythmic head-nodding whilst seeing these bands in Cardiff, so the more separate, cloistered performative space is the most immediate thing I noticed when I sit down, all posh like, for Rhodri Brooks & Eugene Capper. Experimental Americana and country, the collaboration takes the best of both of their solo works and applies proggy, layered songwriting to it. Seeing them in a theatre, even if only for a brief few songs, it becomes quickly obvious why Octa exists as a special, stand-alone event. The inbuilt drama of the songs, which segue from country to prog to psych in movements that feel internally dramatic, is drawn out by the theatre and setting: ideas feeling like they have a demarcated space to roam free in.
This works equally as well for the electronic acts. Y Pencadlys’ performance is never anything less than a prickling whizzball of energy ready to be let loose, behind tenebrous synth operatics which seem threatening, funny yet deadly serious all at once. Songs go between Aphex Twin-like experimental keyboard nurdles and urgent, pulsing weird-house with vocals that, although heavily bled through layers of reverb-wash, contain pressing, intense melodies. Though some audience head-banging wouldn’t have gone amiss, watching Hayden throw out waves of frenetic fistpumps and his singular, manic dancing was all the more captivating from afar.
The necessity of catching a train mean I sadly missed my most anticipated act of the night, the instrumental, orchestral Jon Hopkins-like electronics of the brilliant Cotton Wolf, but did at least catch – the superb Gwenno. Arrestingly melancholy but powerful keyboard lines stand with echoed vocals which perform the trick of feeling laid bare but hazily obscured at the same time. The moments of pop gloss are far from candy-wrapped throwaways: rather, they cling to your ears and meld with the socially conscious insistence that goes through many of her records (“electro-pop feminism”, as she’s described it). Spiked with moments of melodic intensity, they’re songs to return to for more reason than one, and are an apt end to my Octa evening.
words LLOYD GRIFFITHS photos LCN PHOTOGRAPHY (www.lcnphotography.com)