Comanechi are a noisy two-piece from London. One of them slouches over a guitar and plays sludgy riffs while the other one squawks and fizzes on the drums. Together, they’re one of the most blogged acts in recent months, celebrated for their raw energy and lo-fi, grungy sound. Here’s a video of Akiko and Simon at Cardiff Arts Institute on Tuesday:
Comanechi’s debut album Crime Of Love has received mostly good and occasionally gushing reviews, but they’re a lot more fun live than on record. Akiko goes from cute to screeching harpy in the time it takes her to hit wood to skin, squealing and jittering while Simon trudges around the stage with his face in his hair. They’re capable of conjuring up a palpable sense of doom, and watching them live is a bit like getting reprimanded by a pint-sized firebrand and her lobotomised sidekick.
It’s probably a moot point, but without Akiko this band would have none of its hot-asian-screaming-profanities-and-thumping-drums-and-singing-about-sex-and-whoa-is-that-a-nipple media appeal. By which I mean, that’s gotta help if you want to be revered by Vice, shot by Richard Kern and canonised in the NME cool list (okay, so that last one hasn’t happened yet, but it will).
Outside, a blizzard was raging, keeping the numbers down. Akiko reportedly likes it when the crowd jumps around, so she might have been a little disappointed by the modest Institute audience. There was a lot of head nodding and swaying, but the only person who was really going for it was a middle aged lady at the front dancing like crazy, who was wearing crocs and legwarmers and knew all the words to ‘Death To You’. That probably says enough about how great Comanechi were.
