Art Brut

I read somewhere that every year 10.000 CDs are released worldwide. I felt more comfortable, I will never be able to listen to everything.
The disappointing aspect is that I am definitely missing lot of stuff I would love but, for my compulsive-obsessive approach to collecting CDs, it is an economic relief second only to the perspective of an mp3-only world.

Relaxed by the news, I put on the Pussy Galore version of Exile on a main street, just downloaded thanks to my appeal on the Heavy Trash previous article, while cherry picking something new to know out of that pile of 10.000 albums that was left.

One part of me was browsing bloody Amazon catalogue buying Cat Power’s CDs, someone I always had the feeling I could like but never had the occasion to know properly. Few days of wait to get them free delivered and I will see if I wasted 20 quid or my collection will have a richer sound.
The other part of me, was preparing my cameras to go to a live gig. I was about to joining a friend to an Art Brut concert (he listens and knows everything, but I am quite convinced he is not just one person I guess he hides at least twelve look-alikes).

Both Art Brut’s albums had brilliant reviews. They have a strong fan base, they tour UK a lot and they are part of the indie-art-punk-next-big-rock-thing scene which I usually follow. Despite all of this I didn’t know anything about their music, I didn’t even bumped into them on TV highlights of summer festivals. They are among those band left out of the pile for no particular reason.

Art Brut tour arrived at the Cambridge Barfly on a winter night.
Outside temperature was in the range of Antarctic winters before global warming, inside is Barbados summer without the sun, the beach and the clear waters.

A tiny venue packed…I mean PACKED, a double size would have been as crowded.
All the arty and multicoloured students of Cambridge University must have gathered there for Art Brut concert. I wait in a corner, the support ends its slot, I am trying to put films in my frozen cameras. I need to find a way to warm them up, all the lenses are misted up and cover in haze.

I grasp that the band is on stage only at the beginning of the second song, when some figures holding guitars materialize from the artificial fog caused by a smoke machine.
That mixture of Art Rock and shiny indie pop finally finds its voice when the singer finds his microphone.
A talkative approach on (and between) the songs. He has the gift of being funny and clever, imagine something between Franz Ferdinand and The Fall jamming in a special edition of “never mind the Buzzcocks” with Jarvis Cocker directing.
An intellectual-party atmosphere. Hardly breathing, three songs on I moved to the back to enjoy the rest of the gig. The party was on downthere too, colourful girls, high on colourful alchoholic sugary drinks, are dancing on the bar table flirting for another shot. Music flows, frivolous and charming as the dancing girls. A night out of pure distraction, just another beer before facing the reality of a journey back home, zigzagging the icebergs with my scooter.

Sometime it is very easy to realize that live music is nothing more than having a funny, nice, frolicsome night out, without all those debates about the sex of angels.
Check them out on [myspace] or their arty [website]

~ by Valerio on February 9, 2008.