Damo Suzuki's Network, 24 September 2005, The Spiegeltent, Dublin
The
Jimmy Cake have been producing wonderful jazzy post-rock sounds for the
last five years or so. In more recent times they seem to becoming more
and more possessed by the ghosts that inhabited Kraftwerk’s machines
circa Autobahn.
Tonight they have embraced the spirits completely.
The set was four
long pieces of improvisations that bridged both The Jimmy Cake’s own
distinct sound and that of bands like Faust and Suzuki’s former Can.
Closing my eyes it felt like I had travelled back 30 years to
Cologne: it was a thrilling experience and all of the performers
on stage seemed
to be feeling it too. As expected, Suzuki’s voice has become deeper and
less airy than on his most famous recordings. He seems to work his
voice more, singing in a range that is far more open to improvisation.
Suzuki never tries to dominate the proceedings, instead his voice is
just another instrument weaving in and out of the mix. As for The Jimmy
Cake, they have recently lost their trumpet player and Suzuki has
filled the gap nicely.
Lisa Carey’s clarinet provides a foil to
Suzuki’s voice, her playing complemented his vocals very well. Leaving
his accordion at home, Jurgen Simpson joined Paul Smyth on keyboards.
The pair provided the backbone for the evening’s music. Simpson tended
to stick to more melodic sounds whereas Smyth spent a lot of time
pounding rhythms that cause the muscles in your neck to force your head
to nod in time. John Dermody’s drumming was at times sparse and to the
point, keeping with Smyth’s rhythms and adding lovely little fills and
beats when they were needed.
My only complaint with the evening was the guitar sound: while the bass was clearly audible among the other performers, the two guitars where sometimes lost and muddled together. Most of the time this didn’t matter as there was so much going on it was hard to single out anything and the guitars formed a wall of sound behind the rest of the group. Hopefully this show will make itself out into the world via Damo Suzuki’s Network albums but until then I’ll have to make do with this review.