A Bloody Valentine With SISU

"Walkin' down the Kings Road.." Right?

In their 30-year on and off career, Ireland's My Bloody Valentine have only released three albums and a handful of EP's and singles. However - and as those who actually get paid to opinionate on these things have stated - their influence upon the Shoegaze scene cannot be understated... And seeing that I was in the mood for a fuzzy wall of heavily textured and melodic pedal-to-the-metal guitar-fuelled indie-pop, what better way to spend a Sunday evening than at the Echoplex's "My Bloody Valentine Nite"... Especially when Sandra Vu's SISU were headlining a five-band line-up?

Five bands - four of them new to me, and all of whom would be interpreting My Bloody Valentine songs in their sets - meant yet another early start, but as I've previously mentioned, you never know who might catch the eye (and yes, I could have done a little homework - but you know, I like a few surprises...)

So you want an opening act to kick up a real storm and leave a lasting impression? L.A. three-piece Nightmare Air delivered in spades and most certainly ticked all the right boxes. Generating enough energy to power Echo Park - all swirling guitar with plenty of reverb and echo, distorted bass and solid pounding percussion - crafted into perfect vignettes of energetic yet incredibly tuneful and harmonised indie-pop (I've always been a sucker for the boy / girl vocal dueling thing going back to the days of Helen McCookeryBook and Carl Evans from Brighton's The Chefs); the band delivered the perfect storm of a set with an added bonus of (by general consensus) their abso-bloody-lutely nailed on version of "When you sleep." Having subsequently given the band's debut album "High In The Lasers" a spin and fallen hook, line and sinker for (seriously, it is very very very toe-tappingly good and Swann Miller's vocal delivery - to not beat about the bush - is gorgeous) there's more than enough evidence to suggest that this is a band on the cusp of cracking it big time - back in the UK ('cos we like intelligent indie-pop a lot over there) they'd be a no brainer...

Tennis System and United Ghosts rip it up...

And I'd no sooner caught my breath when Heaven took the stage and hit us with a veritable howl of chainsawed reverb and feedback that owed more than a little to the Jesus and Mary Chain. Their sound suffered a little due to the vocals being mixed (buried?) just a tad far back - and yes I know we were celebrating an evening of shoegazing wonderness - but when subsequently listening to the band  I could - shock - hear the lyrics...

Third-up were (and I'm indebted to L.A. Record for putting me straight) the combined forces of Tennis System and United Ghosts delivering a stunning set that was a revelation - the reverb and feedback goes without saying - but with the exquisite textures (as much C86 as Shoegaze) and unexpected changes of pace mid-song, the Mosh was soon a seas of flailing limbs, no more so than when Tennis System's main-man Matty Taylor lept into the crowd for a guitar-thrashing finale... Again - mental note to self - both bands warranted a follow up...

And so, with Tennis System's 2011 album "Teenager" available from that purveyor of a quality tune or two, Bandcamp, and Sunday evening also doubling as the launch for the band's "Part Time Punks Session" EP, there's more than enough evidence to suggest that both are more than worth a punt. Having said that, United Ghosts' eponymous album offers slice upon slice of gorgeous dreamy, reverbed, indie-heaven with enough of an edge to prevent you from ever worrying or caring as to whether your laces are tied or not. Again, that boy / girl vocal sparring of Sha Sabi and Axel Steuerwald swings it -  most definitely getting my vote (and credit card details - I am falling in love with this album...)

Sandra Vu - guitar and flute...

Now as someone whose motto is "I saw all the great bands", I wasn't sure I'd survive the evening (I'm really too old for all this), so thankfully So Many Wizards dropped it down a notch - pulled-up with influences and styles from all over the dial and wowed us with set that blended unashamed pop, rock, ballads and some weird falsetto vocals... Just what I needed - a breather!

But ultimately I was here for the headline act... 

Now the last time I'd seen Sandra Vu, she was hammering the life out of her drum kit at the Dum Dum Girls' "Too True" launch upstairs at the Echo. Tonight, armed with a flute, guitar and a suitcase full of effects pedals, she was fronting her band, SISU. To be honest, I suspect that if you plonked her in front of a grand piano she wouldn't be fazed...

SISU

I'd previous commented that SISU's spell-binding debut album "Blood Tears", with it's undercurrent of throbbing bass and haunting keyboards evoked a strong sense of industrial techno-pop (from my reference-point I'm thinking early Human League and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) and tonight those bass and keyboard hooks are to the fore. There's an added edgy menace as the band open with "Cut me off", while "Electronica" just sounded so right in the context of the cavernous hanger that is the Echoplex - there's that throbbing intro which ripples throughout the song, over which Vu's detached vocals are layered. Performed live this was spellbinding. 

The criminally short set included two My Bloody Valentine covers; "Lose my breath" and a fantastic version of "(Please) lose yourself in me" - for someone who gave the impression that she wasn't sure about these (and the nervous glances at the lyrics taped to her monitors might have been a giveaway) Sandra Vu sure fooled a lot of people on the night. Two songs from the "Light Eyes" EP - "Two thousand hands" and the title track, were also aired, their relative sparseness readily amplified by the Echoplex's acoustics. However for me the highlight of the set has to have been "Ofelia" - my regular reader will have now cottoned-on to the fact that I'm just a sucker for a slow-boiler like this - as I'm carried along with the sound of the flute floating all the way to the rafters...      

Indie thirst sated, I'm pretty convinced that over the past two weeks I've seen and heard the future of indie-pop. 

That future is universally fronted by a pair of x chromosomes...

And checkout some stunning Gig photography from the night's show via Debi Del Grande and L.A. Record here...