this is the voice of re:mote induction.Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Shadow Huntaz @ Glasgow School of Art, 9th March 2004 - this was the third gig of the five that are on the cards for the month of March, and our hope is that it would make up for the disappointment of the first two. The Old Vic Bar is not really the most obvious of venues, the bar part of the Art School’s student union, as opposed to the club part which is upstairs. The area where the pool table and the like would normally be had been cleared, with a scattering of mismatched tables and chairs in front of the bar itself.
Turning up about 8, which is when doors were listed as opening, getting into the bar there were already a scattering of people. Most of whom were familiar faces from the Machine Drum gig, although this event had the Rubadub record shop behind it’s organisation. At this point the Shadow Huntaz were in fact still sound checking, seeming to take sometime to be happy with the sound through the microphones.
Support was provided by Marcia Blane’s School For Girls, who I am familiar with only as a name. At about 9pm, three guys took to the stage, set up behind a table on the right, which unfortunately meant they were only partially visible from the main bar area, where most folk were sitting. There sound covered a mixture of styles, tending towards drifting pads of ambience, mixed in with elements of melody and beats. Chunks of the set being pretty down beat, though there were a couple of times where they brought it up more. At one of those points the sound came across as too cluttered, too much going on, so that they lost it. While at another the build was more focussed, leading with harder beats, that worked more effectively. Overall Marcia Blane provided the first enjoyable performance of the last week, backed up by a complimentary sound system, that would perhaps have served some of the other night’s bands better.
Marcia Blane played for about half an hour, and were followed shortly by Funkarma. The Dutch brothers have released a number of albums under this name, as well as others like Quench. At times some of their material has been dangerously close to making them an Autechre tribute band, though they do enough to get past that. Which is where they went with this set, the two sat at the back of the stage, with two mac laptops set up on a table. Ranging from upbeat mechanical rhythms, to increasingly spare and deepening bass levels. At times they got bogged down in the abstracts of their sound, which obviously was when they were at their least accessible. On the whole the set was good, and it was pretty cool to get a chance to see Funkarma, as we hadn’t expected them to do a set.
After a short break Shadow Huntaz took to the stage, the Shadow Huntaz being two MCs, one from Manchester and the other from New York. With each release they seem to work with different backing artists, taking it to the next level of hip-hop as they said. In the case of the most recent material the Shadow Huntaz worked with the Funkarma brothers from Amsterdam, an album and a couple of singles being released on the Skam label. Musically Funkarma played a more decidedly hip-hop, beat influenced style, while the two MCs rapped over that. The result was well received, the enthusiastic crowd thickening past the Funkarma set, and joining in the chants – MCs shouting “shadow” or “funk” to be greeted by “huntaz” or “karma”. Of the three sets this was the most focussed, concentrating on the one sound really, which worked pretty well for what it was, though perhaps could have been more enjoyable with more variety – like the two sets that had gone before it.
Turning up about 8, which is when doors were listed as opening, getting into the bar there were already a scattering of people. Most of whom were familiar faces from the Machine Drum gig, although this event had the Rubadub record shop behind it’s organisation. At this point the Shadow Huntaz were in fact still sound checking, seeming to take sometime to be happy with the sound through the microphones.
Support was provided by Marcia Blane’s School For Girls, who I am familiar with only as a name. At about 9pm, three guys took to the stage, set up behind a table on the right, which unfortunately meant they were only partially visible from the main bar area, where most folk were sitting. There sound covered a mixture of styles, tending towards drifting pads of ambience, mixed in with elements of melody and beats. Chunks of the set being pretty down beat, though there were a couple of times where they brought it up more. At one of those points the sound came across as too cluttered, too much going on, so that they lost it. While at another the build was more focussed, leading with harder beats, that worked more effectively. Overall Marcia Blane provided the first enjoyable performance of the last week, backed up by a complimentary sound system, that would perhaps have served some of the other night’s bands better.
Marcia Blane played for about half an hour, and were followed shortly by Funkarma. The Dutch brothers have released a number of albums under this name, as well as others like Quench. At times some of their material has been dangerously close to making them an Autechre tribute band, though they do enough to get past that. Which is where they went with this set, the two sat at the back of the stage, with two mac laptops set up on a table. Ranging from upbeat mechanical rhythms, to increasingly spare and deepening bass levels. At times they got bogged down in the abstracts of their sound, which obviously was when they were at their least accessible. On the whole the set was good, and it was pretty cool to get a chance to see Funkarma, as we hadn’t expected them to do a set.
After a short break Shadow Huntaz took to the stage, the Shadow Huntaz being two MCs, one from Manchester and the other from New York. With each release they seem to work with different backing artists, taking it to the next level of hip-hop as they said. In the case of the most recent material the Shadow Huntaz worked with the Funkarma brothers from Amsterdam, an album and a couple of singles being released on the Skam label. Musically Funkarma played a more decidedly hip-hop, beat influenced style, while the two MCs rapped over that. The result was well received, the enthusiastic crowd thickening past the Funkarma set, and joining in the chants – MCs shouting “shadow” or “funk” to be greeted by “huntaz” or “karma”. Of the three sets this was the most focussed, concentrating on the one sound really, which worked pretty well for what it was, though perhaps could have been more enjoyable with more variety – like the two sets that had gone before it.
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