BUBBLEWRAP COLLECTIVE PRESENTS | LIVE REVIEW
The Printhaus, Cardiff, Sat 21 July
Local is very much the dish of the day down here at the Printhaus. Bubblewrap Collective, the record label for which this gig is a showcase, are based just metres away. Thirsts are slaked by cans of Crafty Devil’s finest brews, while Dusty Knuckle – named as one of the top 10 pizzerias in the country by the Guardian last year – is on hand to sate appetites. Many of the musicians, too, call Canton home.
Sweet Baboo, aka Stephen Black, used to before decamping to Penarth, and is accordingly welcomed back with open arms. His set leans heavily on last year’s Wild Imagination LP, beginning with its upbeat singles Swallows and Pink Rainbows and concluding with its stand-out track Clear Blue Skies, the ambient central section teased out gently until the song is twice its recorded length.
Loose-limbed, sun-kissed, so-relaxed-it’s-horizontal funk-rock is usually something I wouldn’t even wish upon my worst enemy, but the circumstances are about as conducive as they’ll ever be for me to enjoy Sock. Nevertheless, the oddball electro of Farm Hand is far better. Mark Daman Thomas – once of this parish, like Black, but now resident in Radnorshire – mingles with the audience (with whom he collaborates on one song), riverdances on the Printhaus courtyard shale, and sings about continuing to harbour hopes of getting selected for the Welsh national football team (International Dreams) and being incapable of doing anything without googling it first (Search Engines). Apparently, the promoters offered him “anything you need”, as long as it was either an apple or a banana. Give the man both, I say.
Every now and again, just when it’s starting to feel as though there’s nothing new under the sun, along comes a band armed to the teeth with evidence to the contrary. It might be premature to place Quodega [pictured] in that bracket, but post-rock, surf rock and Spanish guitar motifs are unlikely to have co-existed – and indeed co-existed so comfortably – many times before, Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday being a case in point. Drummer Kliph Scurlock’s clattering outburst in opener The Embrace As A Bargain Made is arresting in its suddenness, but Quodega are neither conventionally epic nor conventionally heavy, rightly trusting that their unique interweaving of hitherto disparate musical threads will be sufficient to hold the attention.
words BEN WOOLHEAD
