It’s pretty rare for a review to mention the promoters, but Bird On The Wire have been giving emerging alternative music an audience for the best part a decade.
As their stock continues to rise bigger bands and bigger gigs have followed, but they remain steadfast in their support for less established artists at a point when bands need good promoters more than ever.
Jupiter C are a band that many purveyors of London’s underground will be familiar with. After a number of high profile support slots and a critically acclaimed EP this year on Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records the band are on a steady but inevitable incline, and it's easy to see why.
Bringing their machine-rattle dread to the industrial backdrop of Electrowerkz in Angel, the band turn to violin bows, reverb, feedback and drum machines to produce a John Carpenter-esque set woven together by samples. Locust, from this year’s 001 was one of the highlights and anchors a set that effortlessly switches between bleak, cinematic electro to wailing dissonant feedback.
Headliners, Civil Civic are an unusual beast. An instrumental duo who seem to have as much in common with electro-pop outfit Phoenix as they do with the slow-developing broody electronica of Fuck Buttons. They are pretty much bonkers, and if you are a fan of the characterisation of inanimate objects - as I very much am - they are effectively a three-piece, with a drum machine that happily and relentlessly bashes along with the two human members, Aaron Cupples and Benjamin Green.
Complex math-rock tracks such as ‘The Hunt’ - from this year’s The Test - are only ever moments away from crashing into post-punk sonic-wigouts. The band bring an onslaught of energy and ceaseless pounding and such a charismatic and accomplished performance makes them pretty hard not to like; they even inspired a singalong from their loyal fan base, quite an achievement for an instrumental band.
The band bring their set to a close with ‘Less Unless’ and ‘Run Overdrive’, the two tracks behind their exponential rise at the beginning of the decade. Their unique and intimate relationship with their fans shows no sign of diminishing and with their unabated enthusiasm on stage the Civil Civic train shows no sign of slowing down.
