Village of the
Idiots is a nine-piece ensemble cobbled from various bands from the
creative music incubator that is Wellington. On Saturday
night the group played an exhaustingly intense show of dynamic, experimental,
avant garde, moody and unapologetically indulgent jazz.
To call it jazz is to say that the music followed the spirit of that
free form experimental genre if not always the style. Stylistically
it ranged from a kitsch carnival circus sound through to darker progressive
rock, from smooth jazz dub to anarchic noise. Often flirting with cacophony,
brilliant musicianship from all members meant there was always a point
of interest; a musical phoenix rising from the renegade discordant
ashes. It was not music to sit back and passively appreciate as a whole,
as a listener you needed to engage with the musicians, follow their
ideas.
The first set saw the band hit the stage looking like coal miners on
a night out, the stage itself a set for a post apocalyptic orchestra,
musical instruments, conventional and otherwise, were piled like debris.
First up was an almost Jeff Wayne adaptation of the work of Edgar Allen
Poe (perhaps conducted by P T Barnum on Laudanum) from the opening
Tell Tale Heartbeat to the aggressively rendered version of The Raven.
The mood was pure Poe, dark and gothic.
Set two was like the novels of Raymond Candler or Mickey Spillane orchestrated
for television. A little more flippant and catchy than the first set
but still with a cool noir “fog you could cut with a knife” menace
and evisceratingly brilliant musicianship.
I found the evening so original and inspiring that I wanted to pick
up my guitar after a five-year fallow period.
Reviewed
by Matt Bowler printed in Nelson Mail and on www.stuff.co.nz
