Words by Chris McGarel
Photographs by Martin Reijman
Those of us of a certain vintage will remember 1985’s Live Aid spectacular and Phil Collins’ Concorde trip to play at both Wembley and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia. In homage to that feat (but with a lower carbon footprint) Matt Stevens plays a set in The Vineyard pub with The Tangent’s keyboard wiz Andy Tillison, before hotfooting it over the road for his electric band’s gig in the Assembly Hall.
The Stevens/Tillison project is a relaxed affair as the pair joke with us and improvise around one another with no pre-arranged setlist. As if presenting an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Matt requests a key for a leap into the unknown. My suggestion of F# is deemed to be too ‘Ornette Coleman’ and so an assault on the senses in E minor begins.
Matt’s trademark looped acoustic patterns are augmented today by his guitar synth module, making for some very odd sounds. Andy keeps control amid the organised chaos by punctuating the rhythms with bass notes or quoting some well-known musical phrases - at one point leading the assembled crowd in an impromptu singalong of Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’.
Heaven knows what the pub regulars made of all that but the rest of us had fun. I am assured that the duo have recorded together and an album will be forthcoming in due course. If their chemistry today is indicative then those recordings will be well worth picking up.
After a quick scurry across the street, Phil…sorry…Matt takes the stage with his electric rig as one quarter of mathy post-rockers The Fierce and the Dead in their biggest gig to date, playing second-on-the-bill to a festival audience, many of whom will be experiencing this music for the first time.
The band make an enormous racket in club venues with their intricately woven noise-tapestries - how will they fare in the grandiose environs of the Assembly Hall? The answer is clear from the outset - the quartet own the space immediately from the first Steve Reich-inspired, Crimsonesque phasing of ‘Part 4’. Stuart Marshall’s frenetic fill-heavy drumming and tight syncopation coupled with Kev Feazey’s monstrous fuzz bass provide the scaffolding for the twin-guitarists’ hypnotic interplay.
As the set progresses, and with each good-natured between-song quip, the reception becomes warmer and it’s clear that a few recruits are being on-boarded tonight. ‘Let’s start a cult’, indeed. For all the weirdness of this instrumental music with its odd time-signatures and predisposition to abstract noise, there is a melodic accessibility - actual tunes that make it easy to enjoy in a festival context.
Although The Fierce and the Dead have made a name for themselves in prog circles, their nearest cousins are Mogwai, 65daysofstatic, Teeth of the Sea. Once they can get their music across to that audience they will reach the next level. Judging by tonight’s recruitment drive those audiences will like it, they’ll be into it.
