Mmmm

The last time I saw Vladislav Delay, it was at a festival in Shoreditch, quite late at night, in front of a large crowd in a small venue waiting for TV On The Radio. So, naturally, he leaned on hs more rhythmic sensibilities. As if this years 'Tuuma' wasn't hint enough, his performance at the Union Chapel last night is preoccupied with rhythm in an entirely different way; that is, pulling it apart. Fleeting moments of tapped out rhythms were subsumed by hum and echo, impossible to pinpoint where loops ended and begun again. Joined by brass man Lucio Capece, who seemed to filter out calm waves of sound from clarinet and saxophone (or maybe they were being fed through Vladislav Delay's machinery). Obviously, he's a amster of this kind of jarring dub, and live it worked it's magic a lot better than on the aforementioned 'Tuuma'. I dug it.

Supporting (but playing last) were Food. Food are a combination of the occasionally beautiful brass of Iain Bellamy and the kind of awe-inspiring percussion of Thomas Stronen. I mean, really, he was looping up chimes, patches of sampled sounds from earlier on in the gig, and of course on top of all that when he actually started hitting the drumkit, he was an absolute MONSTER. They were joined on guitar for their last piece by Mark Hardwicke, who wasn't really going for it as much as the Food boys hoped - I couldn't really hear much of contribution really - but Food themselves are some exciting improvisers. And now I have to buy all their records.