Autolux

The emergence of introverted indie rock electro in recent years is without doubt in no small part thanks to Tortoise, in more recent times its perhaps Fuck Buttons through ATP’s incessant promotion of them that springs to mind. This is unfortunate for The Berg Sans Nipple as it is without doubt the later bands name that will be mentioned alongside theirs, perhaps with a smattering of Animal Collective.
A shame as although these comparisons are valid, The Berge Sans Nipple do have qualities which are worthy of their own merit, Shane Aspergen, who’s effect laden vocals are submerged within layers of sound, is an awesome multi-instrumentalist drummer and along side Lori Sean Berg they create arrangement of layers and textures punctuated by their interesting collection of obscure instruments.

As the venue fills up Mercury Music Prize winners the XX turn up or at least the Romy Madley Croft third of them. At this point I have to admit to my ignorance of Autolux trivia as although I posses their records I never bothered to find out much about them, not through a disliking of there music just plain ignorant laziness. So when Carla Azar comes on stage to take her place behind the drums I am for some reason very surprised and weirdly grateful. She is great and for at least half the set provides most of the animation on stage. Fittingly I guess, considering the mood of the music, both Eugene Goreshter and Greg Edwards hide behind their fringes and show little sign of life. That is at least until they play Census at which point they burst into life with Azar’s drumming providing the thrust to the distorted guitar and bass. What I really like about Autolux is that they all sing and through this bring different qualities to what is quite sinister and dark sounding Music.

Autolux are good and I have to say I enjoyed what proved to be a well played set which I am sure the audience would be quick to agree with. However before I came to the venue I was thinking that it would be a bit disappointing if when playing live their songs were simply straight forward renditions of their studio recordings. And I am reluctant to say that this is how I felt it ended up being, there was little performance and they didn’t seem to bring anything new to the music through their live show. I feel a bit like I am contradicting myself now as I would recommend anyone to go see them and buy their music including a new 7 picture disc just released as double A side The Bouncing Wall and Census.