Yes Way, Auto Italia South East, London

Yes Way, Auto Italia South East, 13-15th August 2010

August 13, 2010

Yes Way, Upset The Rhythm’s three-day weekend festival that brings the brightest lights and darkest freaks of the UK’s musical and artistic underground together, is back for its second year. Held at Auto Italia South East, a gallery space in Peckham that used to be a car showroom, its aim is to showcase the more experimental acts that lie just under the surface of the UK’s music scene. A quick glance at the line up seems to suggest that the organisers have managed to combine a few of the already fairly well-known acts from the underground scene – Male Bonding, Islet, Veronica Falls, Cold Pumas – with some unknown quantities, ready to be discovered. This is a combination that anyone who’s attended an Upset The Rhythm show over the past years will recognise, and may even have come to take for granted – it is important to stress then just how consistently great their shows have been, and how effective they’ve been at accommodating bands not just from the UK but also America.

Friday night’s opening collection of bands were a fitting start to the festival – they were spread across two stages in two adjacent rooms, so as one band’s set came to an end, there was another ready to start. If you were after a break from wall-to-wall music, the empty room gave you chance to relax and the drinks prices were also great (I’ve been in similar venues where I’ve been charged £4 for a warm can of Red Stripe). As intended, an array of art works also merged with the music – half of the bands performed in front of a projected video work of various objects being suggestively squeezed, rubbed or pushed together; the result was oddly hypnotic. LuckyPDF had also constructed a television studio in the gallery, and were making live transmissions, with the help of bands and attendees, onto the web, and will continue to do so over the whole weekend.

First up were Family, a duo who specialise in woozy, reverb-drenched songs. I heard elements of goth pop, 90s R’n’B, 808s and Heartbreak and Bryan Ferry in their songs, and their singer certainly had a decent set of lungs on him (which is rare at this kind of thing). They have a confusing myspace/website, but also a free EP – their songs have that now ubiquitous nostalgic haze but with elements of unease and playfulness (sometimes at the same time). Following Family came Munch Munch in the larger room, who were another largely unknown quantity who pleasantly surprised. The Bristol quartet buries sweet pop songs under frantic percussion and proggy jams, but seem, endearingly, completely caught up in their own noise.

The Human Race, the first of three bands this evening who also appeared on the Italian Beach Babes/Paradise Vendors Inc compilation from earlier this year, are a little more straightforward. The quartet create a pulsing bed of noise and are fronted by a guy who sings in a monotone and stares at the floor – it works better in practice than it sounds. This idiosyncratic set up, along with some quirky lyrics, helps them stand out from a crowd of bands doing very similar things in the noise/DIY vein at the moment. Cold Pumas are another band who usually manage to distinguish themselves from the slew of noise bands in London at the moment – unfortunately the first half of their set is blighted by sound problems and their songs, built on danceable repetition and noise, only come to life towards the end of their set. Lovvers, meanwhile, enjoy a technical problem free set in the packed smaller room, with a typically frantic set.

Fittingly, as one of the bands who have had recognition beyond their own underground scene, Male Bonding headline Yes Way’s opening night. Their live show has been honed by a significant amount of touring over the past few months in support of their Sub Pop debut Nothing Hurts, but their approach remains much the same – fast and frantic. There’s space for a couple of new songs in the set tonight, and the band even stretch one or two songs out, suggesting that they’re looking to expand on the short, sharp formula that has already worked so well for them. ‘Year’s Not Long’ was rapturously received, and their set closed with one of the album’s other highlights, ‘Pirate Key’.

And this was only the start – Yes Way continues today and tomorrow at Auto Italia South East in Peckham.

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