Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars When on Monday night the power went down in parts of Edinburgh a stone's throw from the Playhouse shortly after Godspeed You! Black Emperor had performed the live soundtrack to dance troupe The Holy Tattoo's frenetic performance of monumental, it was as if the apocalypse the Montreal sired octet had been presaging for so long had finally begun. If such a prospect was unfounded by what was merely the city's shoddy electrics, it nevertheless recalled the power failure caused by GY!BE when they understandably blew the private view size speakers in Stills Gallery during their first Edinburgh appearance. Eighteen years on, and two nights after monumental, the shadowy collective's insistent brand of baroque metal sounds like an even more urgent point of holy salvation in an increasingly dark world. With a low rumble already on the go as the audience enter, things begin with a freeish alliance of double bass and fiddle as the rest of the
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.