Islet, London Lexington

Islet - image from thisislet.com (the unofficial fansite)

March 5, 2010

I could prepare for writing this review by trawling endlessly, needlessly for track names, photos, and an overview of what the selected few hacks who’ve written about Islet have to say. I did, in fact, and it turns out that more’s been written about their decision – be it because of a lack of recorded material or otherwise – to shun the internet. They have no MySpace, sure, but the fact is that an image-search reveals their appearance, a look at their Last.fm or Songkick page (subject to gig promoters’ efficiency) tells of their upcoming tour-dates and press, just like this, is still filtering through. They’re proof that hometown-phenomena still happen.

More importantly is just how astonishing a live band this Cardiff quartet (on this showing) are. It’s a rhythmically mesmeric assault bursting with all sorts of variation. They swap instruments relentlessly and each song is gawpingly stirring, leaving the audience amazed. Everything they emit is so fluent, even when they take on their more tribal persona and run around the venue calling out or playing their guitars at members of the crowd.

There’s a frenzy around every sound they plug into, and when unexpected sections fizz out of the same band-members, the same instruments, it’s astounding. Islet’s rock-smart and dramatic unpredictability is confounding, turning their vision into colossal sound. Vocals, or rather sometimes sounds, pepper the music with new dimensions, and the sheer exuberance of the performance is stirring, fascinating.

Drawing on a mind-sweep of similar artists including the likes of Holger Czukay and Steve Reich for their bold and oft minimally-textured mind-blowers, there’s also a lot to be taken from the likes of no-wave royalty Half Japanese and Swans in Islet’s sound. All of this is a giant disservice to their sheer squeal, so take name-drops and references as mere SEO-friends rather than literal buzzwords.

I’ve heard a few people separately squeal something along the lines of “Islet are the sort of band that make we want to make hand-made fanzines”, and I can join that collective now. Their super-human show exists outside of structure, time and expectation.

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