"It's not for the cock"

Simian Mobile Disco- Koko, London 12/2/09

As the flock headed for tonight’s gig make their way in from the snowy Camden streets, an army of creepy, hybrid space travellers is waiting to meet them. Chrome Hoof are the too-numerous-to-count band dressed in silver
capes and gimp suits experimenting with dance music, metal and prog to a shocked and thrilled audience.

Front woman, Lola Olafisoye, owns, not only the stage, but the entire room with her jerky, possessed body movements and captivating vocal performance. The rest of the band, meanwhile, rotate between saxophones,
guitars, keyboards, bassoons and violins whilst shaking and moving darkly to the omniscient sounds they are creating. Suddenly it seems like the end of the set as the band leave the stage to a wall of white noise. However, this is the point where a 10ft tall sci-fi robot strides arrogantly onto the stage and talks about being “addicted to failure” and opening up our skull caps to see what is inside. It’s fairly safe to say, then, that this is not the average, sub-standard support band. Everyone, from the beer swigging lads to the indie kids in spray on jeans, is left with open mouths, echoing ears and disturbed minds.

After a little wait, Koko begins to fill up even more. By the time Simian Mobile Disco arrive, the venue is packed from front to back with hungry dance fans. Tonight, there is no dilly dallying or warming up or finding their stride: both the DJs and the crowd instantly feed off each other in a messy, glorious live experience. The all encompassing nature of Simian Mobile Disco means that the businessmen, the underagers, the indie fans and hardcore dance kids all bounce around together as the DJs constantly build up the musical tension and drop beats. As the strobe lights go machine gun crazy, all that can be seen for a while is silhouettes of hands in the air and sweaty people throwing their heads back in uncontrollable joy. Too-cool-to-breath Hoxton, this ain’t.

Throughout the night, Simian Mobile Disco use the tried and tested (but electrifying) technique of dropping snippets of their songs- vocal hooks, synth parts, bleeps- into other songs, building the tension higher and higher until, when the song does finally drop, the crowd goes wild in reckless release. “Hustler”, for example, teases us almost to the point of frustration, with it’s sexy female vocal samples, but then it drops in waves of dirty synths and squelchy beats.

Simian Mobile Disco take the potentially problematic aspect of a live show featuring just a couple of guys around some computery, technical shit being boring and turn it to their advantage. Their set up means the two of them are constantly moving around their equipment in circles, interacting with each other and occasionally standing facing the crowd, psyching them up. They are always tweaking certain levels, playing with wires or manically twisting
buttons back and forth- creating the image of a pair of scientists- their glasses and frizzy hair in place- going berserk in their dark lab. The light show, meanwhile, only adds to the intensity and atmosphere of something calculated going off the rails in dangerous spontaneity.  The huge wall behind the DJs seems to almost swallow them up as the lights flash and change shape- constantly changing the colour and atmosphere of the venue.

Finally, the curfew is hit and Simian drag themselves away from the sweating mass of bodies. They clearly want to play for longer but tonight’s gig has seen the DJs whip up a storm- completely controlling and channelling
the proceedings as they feed off the crowd and simultaneously grip them in the palm of their hand.

“Pronoid”- Chrome Hoof

http://www.myspace.com/chromehoof

“Hustler”- Simian Mobile Disco

http://www.myspace.com/simianmobiledisco