Once Twice Thrice

Two Heavenly Records acts played live in Manchester on Tuesday night, both bands surely ones that will go on to play bigger venues than the small but perfectly formed back room of a Victorian pub. The Castle Hotel is on Oldham Street, a long standing Northern Quarter favourite. The back room is a wooden panelled gig venue that has a capacity of eighty people (although that would be uncomfortably full). There were fewer than that number present lat night to see Revival Season and Eyes Of Others (whose debut album comes out tomorrow after a series of single releases since 2017 including an Andrew Weatherall remix back then and two sublime releases this year in the shape of New Hair New Me and Big Companies Large Tentacles). 

We were there for Eyes Of Others and Revival Season, about whom I knew nothing pre- gig, were something of a surprise- two men, Jonah Swilley shaven headed and playing machinery, the other Brandan 'Bez' Evans, dreadlocked and rapping. 

They burst into life from the stage, attacking the gig as if they were playing to a much larger crowd, Brandon's rapid fire raps and stream of rhymes fired out as he prowls the stage, eyeballing the front row and hollering. Not a man who reels his performance in for a small venue and small crowd, this is full on and exhilarating stuff. Behind him, bent over a small table with a synth, drum machine and sampler and a mic for occasional backing vox, Jonah keeps a barrage of beats, dub FX and noises, looping bits of vocal and prodding the pads to fire samples out. At one point Jonah finishes a song as Bez has wound up his vocals by adding simply, 'we're from Georgia'. Their excursions into dub add an extra layer to their hip hop and they were hugely impressive. This track, Chop, a slower jam than some of their set, came out a few days ago. 

Eyes Of Others is John Bryden, an Edinburgh musician who makes 'post club music for people who can't get into clubs'. Synths and drum machine rhythms, swirly psychedelia with detours into 808 acid house, bits of guitar, handclaps and lyrics that suggest an underlying sense of disquiet and unease, the sense that living through late stage capitalism hasn't quite lived up to the promise. Tonight John is centre stage, a Korg synth and microphone with mate/ musical partner to his left on FX pedals, boxes, synth and occasional acoustic guitar.

The set is lovely, songs played and sung with only a few elements but fully realised and affecting, lots of space, slightly trippy, melodic and affecting. John is a little like a more subdued David Byrne, dancing on the spot and caught up in the act of performing, using different singing voices and catching you unaware at times- there are shades of early Beta Band on show too. One song is sung from the perspective of a cow waiting in line at an abattoir. New Hair New Me is deceptively simple, carried along by a funky bass riff, some catchy synth melodies and John's voice.

Once Twice Thrice is introduced as a song about deodorant- skittering drumbeat, rising and falling synth line and doleful vocals, an exercise in twitchy, dubby hypnosis. 

Eyes Of Others finish with Big Companies Large Tentacles, a song I posted back in March and one which is a beaut, lyrics about being told he belongs on 'Freud's chaise longue', powered by an insistent drum pattern and with a sudden hit of acid house and 808 madness that definitely pops in recorded form and positively explodes on stage. 

The tour concludes at Leeds tomorrow night, they play a weekender in Totnes at the end of the month and are then back in Edinburgh for a gig in early August. The self titled debut album is out on Heavenly on Friday too. Go see them while they're playing the small stages.