Kasule, Endor, The Twilight Sad - Strathclyde Students Union, Glasgow

Posted in SHOFT on Thursday 10th February 2011 at 11:02pm

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It had been a bit of a bewildering day or two. I'd practically fled England as things collapsed behind me with the dust licking at my heels like all the best disaster movies. My uncertain employment situation forgotten, somewhere on a train heading through the sun-flecked lowlands today I managed to switch off all the noise - and just to make sure, I decided to replace it with a whole different kind of noise this evening. I'd not even thought much about this rescheduled St.Andrew's Day show, but with a spare hour between arriving at Central Station and checking into my digs for the weekend I decided to drop into the Union to see if tickets were left. The place was in chaos, with the bands gear arriving and clogging the foyer - but the kindly receptionist took me into her tiny office and sold me a ticket. She was most concerned I'd still got my bags with me and wanted to make sure I knew where I was going before I left, and had all the directions. This is one of the reasons I love coming back to Glasgow.

So, wandering back to the Union tonight through a barrage of text messages from people back home having a tough old time, I'm wondering if I'm too old to be trawling around Student's Unions? Eight flights of stairs convinces me I definitely am, but before I can get too maudlin about it Kasule take the stage. I knew nothing of this band - and they weren't about to impart too much information either. Indeed, I had to resort to Twitter later to discover exactly who they were. By all accounts they've been away for a while, springing up in the difficult few years when I'd all but abandoned music, disappearing and then being coaxed out of retirement in the past few months. I was struck first by the projections - strange rural images which centred on a wind turbine, then a stream of Factory Records related images - classic Peter Saville sleeves, scenes from the Hacienda, close-ups of the wild-eyed face of Ian Curtis. I wondered if this made any sense to the majority of the somewhat fresh-faced crowd at all? The parallels didn't end there - Kasule's music harks back to those early New Order recordings - when they hadn't quite found their slick, eighties identity and the harsh edge of the late seventies still permeated the sound. There was stark electronic percussion, a rumbling undertone of bass and guitar work which varied between a sparkling, light cascade of sound and a crashing wave of post-rock noise. The projections faded into a montage of shots of the late, much missed John Peel - and it all made sense. I could imagine him loving this and playing it gleefully, knowing that it wouldn't be easy listening, but that some of his listeners would understand. I still know very little of this band - least of all where one song ended and the next began - but I'm almost tempted to leave it that way, and preserve the odd, unsettling but dizzyingly varied mystery of Kasule.

After an incredibly short interval due to squeezing three bands into an early curfew, Endor took to the stage. Their debut album made my 2010 list by being possibly the most engaging and varied straightforward pop or rock record I had the pleasure to hear last year. That's in no way playing down it's clever twists or moments of intensity - but the songs are instant and accessible, revealing their deeper structure after repeated listens. There is something so effortless about the way David McGinty captures genuine moments of emotion in small, carefully-crafted songs that burn up in the atmosphere almost as quickly as they spring into being. From the outset the band tears into "All Your More Buoyant Thoughts", with trombone and accordion augmenting the four-piece as it reaches a triumphant climax. Straight away, "Without The Help of Sparks" and "Two Lovers" follow - and it dawns on me that the album is an endless stream of highlights. Endor come across as a hard-working, genuine band who want to please an audience - and the slower, more considered "Chapel Doors" does just that. As it's final aching notes fade, you can see the couples fold closer into each others shoulders, and the loners shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Endor seem to speak to everyone tonight. "Seek Cover" closes a brief but near-perfect set, and I feel vindicated in backing this fine record.

I have a poor record with The Twilight Sad. I've managed to miss them on numerous occasions, and will be missing them again next week nearer home. It's become something of a joke because, since dashing back from Glasgow in 2007 feverishly declaiming I'd found the holy grail in "Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters", I've failed ever to see this band perform. Live, the band offer a different perspective on their sound - with the slow burn of their studio work giving way to a scorching wall of sound, with a nod to a less whimsical My Bloody Valentine. The Twilight Sad are possibly the loudest band I've heard in years too, and the oddly-shaped venue sends the walls of feedback bouncing around us in disconcerting and dizzying ways! It's unusual to see a band these days who have among their number a vocalist who isn't responsible for anything else - and in James Graham they have a consummate performer who reminds me oddly of Robert Pollard in the way he is focused totally on responding to the music around him. He isn't, however, a front man in the traditional sense - this isn't a band fixated on personality, and Graham's voice is ultimately one of the instruments. One that dips and soars, chants and wavers with emotion over the keening guitars and thundering rhythm section. A new song is introduced as "Charles and Camilla" and the crowd respond with incredible enthusiasm. This band is loved here, it's plain to see. And I can see why - tonight my foolish hyperbole over that first record makes utter sense - and seeing finally this band lay waste to a room through force of emotional will and thunderous noise is something clearly I'd put off for far too long.