THE EX / RHODRI DAVIES / SLAGHEAP | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sun 22 Sept
In that no other bands really sound like Netherlands punk nomads The Ex [above], choosing support acts to create a diverse bill should be a simple task. There’s more to diversity than stylistic considerations, though – Slagheap [below] are four women from Bristol whose cumulative age is probably about one third of the headliners, and yet you could call their music postpunk in the same way you could The Ex’s. The quartet confer among themselves as regularly as a University Challenge team, weather various false starts and goofs by being personable, and sing about sex parties and pony-obsessed teens with brio that also suggests indiepop, riot grrrl and playground chants.
Swansea-based experimental musician Rhodri Davies [below] notes that he and The Ex first shared a lineup some 20 years ago, but even without this his set of solo improvisations on an amplified harp would be a neat foil to the Dutch group: to my ears, it sounds a bit like something they might release on Terp or Makkum, their record labels responsible for showcasing wild/rad modern African sounds. Davies plucks and twangs like a dervish, snapping strings at a consistent rate until he’s nearly brandishing an empty frame at the end. You’d hardly mistake it for rock music, but he uses rockist tropes in a highly watchable manner.
The Ex formed in late-70s Amsterdam, angry young punks unencumbered by lack of technique like thousands of likeminded others, and over time evolved into a hugely powerful, rhythmically watertight and danceably groovy band influenced by many global sounds without diluting them. Their groundbreaking tours of Ethiopia in the early 00s triggered hookups with multiple African musicians, which has audibly informed their songwriting in turn – see the buoyant chorus of The Heart Conductor, the rickety jazz of Addis Hum (its title a tribute to Ethiopia’s capital, obviously) or the multiple cowbell/woodblock-type gizmos Katherina Bornefeld has on her drumkit.
An unapologetically utilitarian quartet, all dressed in plain t-shirts and walkers’ footwear, The Ex can be furrow-browed onstage as they lock in to long, precise instrumental parts – but always with the payoff of a big, rusty, ascending riff round the corner, at which point Arnold de Boer, Terrie Hessels and Andy Moor will lurch about the stage with ageless energy. The oddly babyfaced de Boer, who replaced original vocalist GW Sok a decade ago, gives us a few “diolch”s; Hessels pokes a drumstick into the strings of a guitar that looks like it was recovered from the Mary Celeste. They are great performers who never have to mug for our approval, and although the attendance was a tad disappointing tonight (the last time they played this room, albeit as part of Swn Festival, it felt like half the city was inside), The Ex deliver the demanded encore to complete a typically life-affirming hour.
words NOEL GARDNER photos SIMON AYRE
