Liquid Room, Edinburgh
4 stars
Questions may be asked
about who the real head-liners were in this glorious double bill,
though in the end it was the songs that mattered. Seeing Green
Gartside's revitalised Scritti Politti live at all is a thrill, even
if a bottle of cough medicine is on standby to help Gartside's
honeyed tones. Opening with the slow skank of The 'Sweetest' Girl's
deconstruction of the love song set the bar high, but, coming so soon
after providing the live soundtrack to dancer/choreographer Michael
Clarke's latest work, Gartside's four-piece band were happy to go
through the Scritti back-catalogue without too much analysis.
Technology has made it
easier to play shiny 1980s hits like The Word Girl and Wood Beez,
which sit seamlessly alongside more recent wonders like The Boom Boom
Bap. There's one new number, which apparently references Kant's
response to cultural relativism, and only Gartside can think his
eponymous countrified homage to French philosopher Jacques Derrida
“really dumb.”
Saint Etienne's recent
Words and Music album, written in part with former members of Girls
Aloud production-line writing team, Xenomania, is a series of
middle-aged love letters to pop. Live, the core trio's mining of
sixties girl groups, seventies disco dolly electronica and eighties
indie and Eurovision Hi-NRG oddly works better without a full band.
With just Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs skulking at the back on assorted
electronics while sparkly-frocked singer Sarah Cracknell trades
vocals with long-term foil, Debsey Whykes, they too opt for a
greatest hits set peppered with the odd new number. The result, even
with a guitarist joining them, is a euphoric form of post-modern
cabaret on a night of pure pop joy.
The Herald, December 13th 2012
ends
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