02 ABC, Glasgow
Four stars
Mark Stewart and Gareth
Sager's reformed crew of original punk-funk provocateurs aren't an
obvious choice for Celtic Connections. Then again, anyone who can mix
up a multi-cultural stew of free jazz, dub and anti-capitalist
agit-prop is more connected than most, as the Pop Group prove in
their first Glasgow show for thirty-three years.
Tonight is also about
celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the similarly eclectic
Creeping Bent record label, and the evening begins with a set from
The Sexual Objects, former Fire Engine Davy Henderson's latest
groove-laden vehicle. Selections from their forthcoming second album
are preceded by a magnificently audacious cover of You've Got The
Power by Henderson's former band Win. Stripped of its 1980s
production gloss, tonight it more resembles the Live 1969 version of the Velvet Underground's
What Goes On.
The Pop Group go one
better with their opening clarion call of We Are All Prostitutes, as
Stewart shrieks out his proclamations, towering over the crowd like a
sniper, clutching his lyric sheets to his chest. Sager stabs out
piercing guitar shards that take no prisoners, or else blows a
strangled clarinet on the equally damning Thief of Fire. The sound is
fleshed out by a youthful recruit on second guitar, with drummer
Bruce Smith and bassist Dan Catsis providing the funk.
Stewart's prophecies of
doom are nowhere better encapsulated than on the band's defining
statement, She Is Beyond Good and Evil, which still sounds like the
most dangerous song ever written. With Sager shimmying his way
through a closing Where There's A Will and We Are Time, the end
result is an incendiary call to arms and a soundtrack to a revolution
you can dance to.
The Herald, January 20th 2014
ends
Comments