Musical Takeover by Geoff Barrow’s Label
Invada Invasion curated by Geoff Barrow featuring Zu, Mogwai, Zun Zun Egui, F**k Buttons
Colston Hall, Saturday September 26th
Invada Records’ mission statement is to avoid genre-specific releases in order to expose underground artists. It’s no surprise then that label boss and Portishead founder Geoff Barrow’s Invasion of the Colston Hall defies simple classification. The mini-festival features acts from the Invada label alongside acclaimed international artists; all of which plough a defiantly individualistic line, sharing with Barrow an uncompromising commitment to the experimental.
Colston Hall’s new multi-levelled foyer with its series of staircases and bridges is clinical in its architectural lines. The space is detached from emotion, unapologetically so, which has certain parity with the music it hosts, in particular Italian no-wave metallers Zu. Zu’s set traverses and transcends genre with exhilarating results, as they aggressively punctuate their idiosyncratic punk noise with mathsy broken beats. It is a unique experience to witness the crowd far above the stage breath life into the space as they rock back and forth amongst the bisecting lines of the elevated walkways.
In the second hall, Zun Zun Egui bring together Tortoise’s post-rock groove with West African guitar phrases and a whole host of other disparate influences in a mesmerising postmodern stew. The rhythm section is sufficiently tight to grant the guitar and synths freedom to jump between psychedelia, soukous, noise, and beyond. Bristol is lucky to have such an original act to call its own.
Over in the main hall, Mogwai perform the stand out tracks from their six studio albums with technical aplomb in a set that although impressive lacks structure. Their instrumental post-rock is reduced to a series of isolated thematic discourses as the dynamic tension is contained within each track. With better programming, Mogwai could have delivered a more holistic set without seeming disjointed. The sound although impressively large was overwhelmed by top-end frequencies which ultimately detracted from the experience further. After the initial impact of seeing Mogwai in the Colston Hall, there was insufficient flow to link their moments of brilliance.
A far more upbeat experience came from local heroes and musical trailblazers, F**k Buttons who closed out the festival from the foyer stage. With their distorted big beat deconstructing melodic and rhythmic convention it was typical of the Invada Invasion experience: indefinable, challenging, and quite brilliant.
Events of this calibre actively facilitate the transition from concert hall to cutting edge performance space, placing the Colston Hall at the forefront of Bristol culture. Let’s hope that the invasions continue and that the Colston Hall’s boundaries never become fixed.
Read the best gigs of 2013.