Last night I went off to Glasgow’s hip and happening Stereo to see Fuck Buttons and the Nackt Insecten Trio.
I was pretty stoked, as it was my first time seeing Nackt Insecten perform as a three-piece (it was only their sixth ever gig) and I’ve always been a fan of Rory’s solo sets under that name; the trio is rounded off by Andreas and Peter, twiddling a few knobs and drumming respectively, who also perform under the Single Helix name.
With the room less than half-full (it was only half past eight after all) they ambled on stage. I’m not too sure what I expected, but it wasn’t exactly the warmest performance with Rory, front and centre, noodling away on his guitar with his back to the audience for the whole set. However, what they lacked in visual flair, they more than made up for with a tight slow-burning set of psych-noise. It’s half past seven the following evening as I’m typing this up, and my ears are still ringing. Although, the additional two members seriously beef up the set (Peter in particular is a fucking dynamo, driving forward the set), it is a wee bit too close for comfort to their previous work as Single Helix. Scroll to the bottom of the post for a video I took during their set.
Fuck Buttons are, at least in terms of noise acts, near enough natural showmen. The duo set up, as they always do, side-on from the audience facing each other, and headbanged and pogo’d their way through a surprisingly ‘up’ set, with each and every chord change being greeted by Ben Power with a weird James Brown-style 
hip-thurst.
One of the things that was so satisfying about Street Horssing is how the band succesfully fused abstract noise dynamics with poppy sensibilities. Live, it’s a similar story, and it’s all jacking four-to-the-floor and disco lights offset with the ominous thrum of the noisier patches.
Their new record, Tarot Sport, sees the duo heading in a dancier, more electronic direction, with some tracks sounding like the icier, more abrasive corners of the Warp back-catalogue. However, it was obviously the tracks from Street Horssing that got the best reception; during closer Sweet Love For Planet Earth, there was a guy humping the speakers on my left, and to my right was a cute girl grinding away as if she were listening to Neyo or something.
So, yeah, uhm, good night.
croaky, which I suppose fits the slightly downbeat feel of the songs. The arrangement (yup…) is fairly straight-forward and the Coastguards do their best not to get in the way of Michaelson’s voice. So it’s strictly gently gently plucky plucky. It’s nothing new, but his voice is enough to make it interesting.
some emotional singing and tappy drums, and then emotional singing and louder drums, and then the vibes guy starts drumming too and a feedbacky coda. Multiply that by ten.