Sian Alice Group, London Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

Sian Alice Group

August 6th 2009

In the last couple of years, New York label The Social Registry have done a great job of introducing me to some truly compelling new music, most notably the fractured sound-collages and noisy pop of Gang Gang Dance’s quite astonishing God’s Money.

In signing London seven-piece Sian Alice Group they may have managed to outdo themselves once again. Last year’s 59.59 – which I admittedly only discovered after catching the last twenty or so minutes at their set at ATP vs. The Fans in May – was the definition of a ‘grower’. Hardly easy on first listen despite its warm melodic glow, underneath Sian Aherne’s glassy vocals is a powerhouse of conflicting elements, awash with fragments that seem to touch on every genre and no genre all at once. Yet over repeated listens its charms gradually sink in, more straightforward songs rubbing up against oceanic interludes and frosty piano pieces bathed in drone fuzz. This evening is the launch party for Troubled, Shaken Etc., their second album, and the heavens have opened over London by the time I get out of work.

I’m still attempting to shake off the drowned rat look by the time Esben & The Witch walk onstage, and by the end of the first song I wonder why it’s taken me this long to hear them. They’re built around a pretty basic set-up – two guitars, a freestanding floor tom and cymbal, synth and sequencer – but they manage to emit a daunting wall of sound from such humble origins. The stage, decorated with pieces of kitsch, clutter and an unnervingly realistic ceramic human face, provides a suitable backdrop for their songs, which simmer with tension between the modern – computer crackles and electronic beats – versus the primitive, ritualistic pounding of the drums. The final song is a revelation, guitarist Dan bent double over the floor tom as a full on 4/4 dance beat kicks in halfway through to a startling climax.

I get soaked all over again when I run out to get some cash between bands, and return for the headline performance looking much the same as I did when I first arrived, slightly-too-long hair plastered to the front and sides of my head. It’s a good look. As I make an attempt to dry off, Sian Alice Group wander onto the stage with little fanfare. What immediately strikes is how restless they are, each player seemingly in constant motion from instrument to instrument, drums to keyboard to violin to guitar, to create a surprising physicality for pieces that are often intangible in their recorded forms. Live, even more so than on record, Aherne’s voice becomes less a focal point and more an instrument; buried deep in the maelstrom surrounding her, its crystalline texture and fragility at times makes it seem that it is on the verge of being entirely washed away, yet she holds fast and when the storm drops her lyrics regain an uneasy control before the next wave.

Second song in, stop-start guitars introduce ‘Way Down To Heaven’, its muscular riff gradually succumbing to deepening washes of distortion before it falls apart entirely and the ensuing feedback peels away, to the opening of 59.59 highlight ‘Contours’, its grandeur on record replicated a thousand-fold in the live setting. Throughout, genre conventions continue to be subverted – rock riffs underpinned by a pumping techno beat, gentle piano melodies subsumed under astral debris – in this sense Sian Alice Group may be the closest thing I know to the literal definition of ‘post-rock’; the basic principles of rock songwriting refracted through the full prismic spectrum of modern music, from electronics through classically influenced piano minimalism, ambient interludes and searing dance workouts.

They close with a monolithic wall of feedback, all players thrashing at their instruments, and that’s it. No encore, none needed. It’s still raining outside.

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