The Quietus 15th Birthday at the Electric Brixton

On the 5th of September, music magazine The Quietus celebrated its 15th birthday with a triple headliner comprised of Caroline, Lankum, and Black Midi. Organised by the label Rough Trade, both as a celebration and as a fundraiser for the magazine. It took place at the one and only Electric Brixton, with each band having more or less 40 minute sets.

Caroline

The post rock band Caroline, with a mammoth eight members, quickly captivated the audience with Dark Blue, my favourite song of their set, which had a slow build up of layers with a lovely tempo added onto it. However, the following tracks were not as gripping; their sound morphed at times into the slow kind of post-rock, with musical notes being sparse and near-silence making many appearances. Post-rock in this fashion can be very difficult to execute perfectly, often ending up overextending its stay and becoming slightly boring. They played two new songs, both of which had a really nice way of fitting together different vocal harmonies. Yet I did feel as if they were lacking some more interesting instrumentation. It's also worth a mention that after each song most of the members would change instruments, demonstrating that they're all proficient multi-instrumentalists. All in all, Caroline were a good band to slowly ease you into the rest of the show, nicely foreshadowing some of the louder acts to come later.

Lankum

Lankum, the critically acclaimed folk-drone band, performed with one of their members missing. This led to the set being a little different to their usual live performance, seeing they had to accommodate to this change. Despite this they still had something special come through in a few tracks of their set. The first one was a cover of The Dubliners' Rocky Road To Dublin, played with only amplified stomping as instrumental background. The second was The New York Trader, a seven minute song about going to sea with a murderer as captain which is one of the best songs from their recent album False Lankum. Other than that though, there weren't many things that really stuck out to me, and all the other tracks of the set went by rather quick.

Black Midi

Black Midi, the brutal avant prog darlings of the windmill scene, played their set as a trio and were, in the truest form of the phrase, all killer no filler. Performing only the more aggressive cuts from each album, they had the entire crowd buzzing during each song, several of which had extended jams. At one point during 953, Morgan's drum kit broke, which gave a short interlude of sorts to the intensity of their show. Black Midi are super precise live, managing to translate their studio efforts to the stage really well, with a lot of earlier tracks drastically improved upon (best example, Speedway). Each member is flawless at their respective instrument, so with all of the above combined, it's really no wonder that they've managed to make such noise in recent years, especially for a band who are yet to peak.

In a nutshell – The Quietus 15th birthday show was certainly enjoyable, with both Caroline and Lankum bringing interesting musical concepts to the table, and with Black Midi elevating the night to another level. Live DJs Ben Ayres and Tom Travis require a shoutout too, for making the wait from band to band much more interesting. All-in-all, a very well chosen three bands, who were all able to keep the audience engaged the entire night, and are all worth seeing live on their own, even if it's just to experience a song or two. Playlists, for your convenience