Art noise
The TRIPTYCH festival offers a window into a world of music and film in which creativity and imagination are more powerful than commercial constraints. We outline the characters who will shape this year’s event.
WIRE
Wire never split. They just dismantled and reassembled themselves is all. It's called progress. From their accidental immersion in the original poxy Roxy plastic punk scene and the short sharp shocks of debut album. Pink F/ag. on which 20 rabbit punch assassins disguised as songlets left yOu reeling. Colin Newman. Bruce Gilbert. Graham LeWis and Robert Gotobed were exposed as the original neurotic clever-clogs outSider art school quartet. and were treated with requisite suspi0ion.
On returning in the wake of the mid-19908 Britpop con trick. whereby lesser-spotted career opportunists duly ripped them off. Wire inadvertently found themselves plugged into hist0ry. By the time they released Send. their first original album for 13 years. in 2003. they were in the thick and thin of things once more. scaring the life out of Johnny- COme-latelys who thought they reinvented the wheel but really sound like Busted. Here was the nose of art. tense. nervous headache music. deconstructing its roots. eating its own tail. and coming Out stronger on the other side. Something abOut cycles or something.
Somewhere in between. they did mid-803 electro— percusswe clatter. released ‘Outdoor Miner” and 'Map Ref 41 N 93 W'. two of the most
20 THE LIST 15> 29 Apr 200.".
sublime shouldabeen hit singles ever made. They also indulged in a mountain of solo pioiect-recordprojects. Supported Roxy Music at their most anodyne. released a classic album called 1:34. caused riots. broke moulds. invented Brit Art 20 years too soon. dissolved. fused. remixed. punched and pummelled. Wire never split. They're on a loop is all. Some call it progress. And it rocks. lNCi
ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM
He was young. he was ambitious. and he knew. Oh he knew all right. Said one colleague: ‘l-le reminded me of the cool black guys on Blue Note record sleeves . . . everything that was ultra hip.’ Andrew Loog Oldham actually modelled himself on the leO talking Jewish hustler from the musical Expresso Bongo. Always told you what you wanted to hear but never quite what you needed to know. Life for Oldham was verily a celluloid fantasy — one he was both starring in and directing. ‘I knew what I we s looking at.‘ he said on first sight of the Stones. ‘lt was sex.’ And
where there's carnality. of course. comes commerce. The one-time i.'\.rou|d-be kidnapper and Mary Quant errand boy duly ousted the band's first manager and set out about creating a legend with his new cl'iarges. Plenty of other rock'n'roll entrepreneurs have earned more cash but few can compete .n the star-making game. This fella dreamt up a consteilation. iRE?i
SUPER FURRY ANlMALS
The Super Furry Animals are nuts. While eccentricity in music can sometimes be irritating as hell. exactly the opposite is true for Wales' finest musical export since. well. over. The antithesis of workmanlike dullards Stereophonics. the Super l'urries are a paradox wrapped in an enigma
dressed up in a furry costume
and smoked in a bong. One
minute they sound like Status
Ouo. only good. the next
they're pumping out leftfield techno. Next minute they're using a converted tank to blast Out the anthemic 'Man Don't Give a Fuck' at festivals. then they're performing sublime vocoder pop 'Juxtapozed With U' on Top of the Pops. Over a ten-year career the band have conSistently pushed the boundaries of what is achievable in pop and rock music. and have embraced
Super Furry Animals
new technology as much as they have refined their songwriting craft. If you don‘t love the Super Fumes. you don‘t love mtiSic. It's that Simple. (DJ)
T-MODEL FORD
T model Ford lost a testicle in a fight with his dad. T-model Ford fathered 26 children With five different Wives. 'T-model Ford was sentenced to ten years on a chain~gang for killing a man With a knife. T~ model Ford wants to sing to you.
An original bluesman from the MissiSSippi Delta. James ‘T-model' Ford released his debut album at the tender age of 75. Following a life working a range of Jobs in the southern states. he deCided to pick up the guitar on his 58th birthday. His talents were discovered some years later by Matt Johnson of Fat Posswn records. who describes Ford as 'the most friendly. fun—loving psychopath you'll ever meet'.
Ford doesn't read or write. so what comes Out on stage is exactly what he's got inside him. Accompanied by his drummer Spam. T-model Ford is capable of producing the sort of bone-crushing, cantankerous blues you would hope for. "The blues is what's happenin'.' he says. ‘The blues'll put you on your feet and the blues'll take you off yOur feet'. (JRi
GWEN MCRAE
She's the one who sang 'Funky Sensation. ‘Keep the Fire Burning' and 'All This Love That I'm GiVing'. y0u know. You don't? Oh well. make no mistake. then. If you've been anywhere near a nightclub in the last 1:3 years. Chances are you will have heard one of these hits by the mice of early 80s SOUI. b