CREEP SHOW + I AM FYA + SIMON RAYMONDE (DJ SET) – ATTENBOROUGH CENTRE FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS, BRIGHTON 16.6.23
It’s been 1345 days since we last had the pleasure of witnessing a live set from the Bella Union supergroup Creep Show. For those that aren’t fully aware of exactly who Creep Show are, it’s a collaborative project from John Grant with the dark analogue electro of Wrangler. Wrangler being Stephen Mallinder (who along with from Chris Watson and Richard H Kirk were Cabaret Voltaire), Phil Winter and Ben “Benge” Edwards. Today the quartet have released their long-awaited second album, ‘Yawning Abyss’, out via Bella Union – Purchase options HERE. This follows on from their debut long-player ‘Mr Dynamite’, which was voted 2018 ‘Album Of The Year’ by Electronic Sound Magazine.
The tour kicked off last night in Exeter and tonight sees the quartet performing at the iconic Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), which is located opposite Brighton & Hove Albion’s Amex Stadium, within the University of Sussex Falmer complex. The four remaining tour dates will take place in July from Friday 21st to Tuesday 25th, when Creep Show will play the ‘Blue Dot Festival’ at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, then move onto Hebden Bridge Trades Club, and onto the ‘Latitude Festival‘ in Suffolk, before concluding at the Village Underground in London.
Yes I understand that it can be a bit of a trek up to ACCA, but I absolutely love the building and honestly feel that it is criminally underutilised by the contemporary music fraternity. There really should be more gigs taking place here than there currently are. The acoustics are terrific, the venue is spotless, the atmosphere is relaxed, the staff/volunteers/students are welcoming and the beer is cheaper than in town!
The Creep Show quartet took to the ACCA stage bang on 9pm and as you would expect greeted with loud applause. On our last encounter they were all lined up facing us, Kraftwerk fashion, but tonight Phil bucked the trend and stood sideways on. I quizzed him after their set about this and he informed me that he likes to see what his bandmates are doing…fair enough!
So facing us from stage right to left were Benge on electronic drumpads with a nearby laptop; to his left was Stephen Mallinder who was utilising a Roland SP404SX sampler, keys, another laptop, and offered lead vocals on a number of tunes. Next to him was John Grant on Akai MPK keys, another laptop and lead vocals on the other songs, some of which included the use of a vocoder. Finally on stage left (our right) was Phil Winter on Yamaha keys and other gadgets, but no laptop. They were aided by Dan who was off stage and he provided the visuals that ran on the large screen behind the band.
As ACCA has a state of the art soundsystem and acoustics, it’s no wonder that the sound quality was top dollar! ‘Yawning Abyss’ was going to be heard exactly as it should be this evening. Eight of the nine songs found on the long player would get an outing this evening, bar the album’s closing number ‘The Bellows Reprise’. The set was supplemented with a trio of tunes from their debut ‘Mr Dynamite’ album, with the first of these ‘Endangered Species’ being the opening number.
I deliberately did not listen to any of ‘Yawning Abyss’ prior to tonight’s performance, so that I would hear it with fresh ears. This paid dividends from song two, which was ‘The Bellows’, which is the opening number of ‘Yawning Abyss’. Oh my God, John Grant’s vocoder delivered BIG time, even outdoing Kraftwerk! I don’t think I’ve ever heard such vocoder quality before! Blimmin’ marvellous! He accompanied the vocoder with great use of his Akai MPK keys, and my mind was totally made up. I HAD to purchase the album tonight! This was as it turned out to be my highlight of the set.
‘Matinee’ from the new platter was up next, and was followed by ‘Modern Parenting’ (from ‘Mr Dynamite’) and things had turned from hardcore electronics to funky numbers as Mallinder took the vocal lead and headed us into latter Cabaret Voltaire territory, especially the lyrics “Did ya ever stop to think what ya gonna do?; When your doggy jumps the fence and sets his sights on you”.
The next half dozen tracks were from the new album, beginning with ‘Bungalow’ which reminded me of Kraftwerk’s ‘Vitamin’ which interestingly had been played over the soundsystem earlier in the evening. Even the falling rectangle shapes on the backing film reminded me of the falling lozenge shapes used by Kraftwerk when playing ‘Vitamin’ live. Grant’s voice during this tune was particularly great and it had an electro jazz vibe going down.
‘Moneyback’ followed and this too reminded me of Cabaret Voltaire, but then things got all acid house in a vibe that meets in a Mr Lee (‘Get Busy’) vs Raze (‘Break For Love’) stylee. We appreciated it by throwing some moves! Another great new track! The jerky rhythmed ‘Steak Diane’ followed, but for me was “Steak tartar” (sic), and so we moved onto ‘Yahtzee!’ which is delivered as a quirky electro tune which concluded with an outburst from Mallinder shouting “You’re a f*cking liar!”. I wonder if someone cheated with the five dice?
The slower ‘Yawning Abyss’ title track came next, which saw Mallinder on shakers and then they thanked us and vacated the stage, “So early?” I thought! They did return to play just one number, that being ‘Pink Squirrel’ (from ‘Mr Dynamite’), which reminded me of the vocoder work of Egyptian Lover and Herbie Hancock. At 9:59pm they left for good…..Hmmmmm. Last time around back in 2019 at The Old Market in Hove we were served ‘Sensoria’ the 1984 single by Cabaret Voltaire as one of the encores – Read the full review of that night HERE.
Cabaret Voltaire fans might also like to enjoy our report on Chris Watson’s unique spatial sound installation ‘No Man’s Land’ show which took place here at ACCA in March 2018. Find it HERE.
Creep Show:
John Grant – lead vocals, keys, laptop
Stephen Mallinder – lead vocals, keys, laptop
Phil Winter – keys
Ben “Benge” Edwards – electronic drumpads, laptop
Creep Show setlist:
‘Endangered Species’ (from 2018 ‘Mr Dynamite’ album)
‘The Bellows’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Matinee’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Modern Parenting’ (from 2018 ‘Mr Dynamite’ album)
‘Bungalow’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Moneyback’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Wise’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Steak Diane’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Yahtzee!’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Yawning Abyss’ (from 2023 ‘Yawning Abyss’ album)
‘Pink Squirrel’ (from 2018 ‘Mr Dynamite’ album)
Support this evening came in the form of I Am Fya who is Anthea to her family and friends. She is an experimental artist from Manchester, although her homeland is Barbados, and she is currently based in Brighton whilst she studies a Digital Music Sound Art course. She is also a member of the Afro-Futurist performance collective, Brownton Abbey. She too is today celebrating a new release, her’s is a single titled ‘The Sun Will Kill Me’.
This evening we are in her company for 31 minutes, from 8pm onwards as she performs her “Homeland Visual Project” made for her course at Sussex University. She informs us that she was stranded in Barbados for quite a large portion of the course having to look after her parents and this is where the inspiration came from. Thus we are treated to voice snippets of her family, friends, and parents/grandparents carers. I think that she said that Fya is the name of the 6 year old child of one of the carers, but I might have misheard this.
As with Creep Show, Anthea has films projecting behind her, but she has made these herself as part of her performance art. These feature soundscapes and randomly taken noses such as bird song, and possibly wooden pounding instruments, and the like, or as her website puts it “Her recent work collects sound from her homeland, Barbados. It focuses on identity, culture, spiritual connections to land and ancestors, radical self-love, the power of chosen family, otherness, and acceptance”.
For the live element, Anthea adds her spoken chants and words and atop these she adds the electronic sounds from a Roland effects unit plus an Apple laptop. For the final number she adds a trio of little bells which added to the overall immersive experience. This is experimental stuff indeed and it is evident that family means everything to Andrea. At the conclusion of her set at 8:31pm, the crowd gave her a massive rapturous applause. A pass with honours then!
We were rather looking forward to seeing what former Cocteau Twins band member and Bella Union Record Label boss and Bella Union Record Store owner Simon Raymonde had to offer for tonight’s DJ set, which was taking place in the adjoining café/bar area of ACCA. With the Creep Show set coming in at a mere 59 minutes, it was up to Simon to spin his vinyl selections for between an hour and a half to two hours! Would he have enough 12” discs to fill all that time? Of course he did and my colleague and I were officially the last to leave the venue! We could have stayed longer to be honest, but curfews have to be adhered to.
It was a pleasure listening (and at times watching) Simon in action as he cued up each of the 12” vinyl’s! The beauty of his selection was that we really didn’t know where musically he was going next. As I said to Simon at the end of the night “You certainly have chosen a wide selection of choice cuts!”, to which he replied “I like to keep people guessing!”. Had he known that my colleague and I were endeavouring to guess the next tracks? Suffice to say, we didn’t get a single guess correct between us! This revelation must surely bring a smile to Simon’s face if he reads this, as that will be a positive indicator of job done!
Simon is a decent fellow and thus I wasn’t expecting any self promoting Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Drowning Craze, Snowbird, and Lost Horizons discs to be spun. I don’t believe there were, but there were a surprising number of reggae tracks on offer, such as Culture and the like. Was this due to the hot weather and feeling the reggae holiday vibe? Who knows? But at a push, the standout tunes from his DJ set for us included: the Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley remix of ‘Fine Time’ by New Order (which was my colleagues fave); ‘The Dignity Of Labour, Pt. 3’ by The Human League; ‘White Car In Germany’ by The Associates; and my standout tune ‘Memories’ by Public Image Ltd. All surprise selections that are rarely given DJ set outings and all very much appreciated by us!
So in conclusion, it has been a brilliant night out as bares witness by the purchasing of the brand new Creep Show album as well as a striking orange t-shirt, but the only regret was that they really didn’t play for long enough and so should have kept in the 7 minute 20 second epic proposed final number ‘Fall’ from their ‘Mr Dynamite’ album.
Further Creep Show reading – Who are they?
54 year old John Grant is an American born singer, musician, and songwriter who holds both American and Icelandic citizenship. He is fluent in German, Icelandic, Russian, and Spanish, and can hold basic conversations in French and Swedish. He first became known as the co-founder, lead singer, pianist, and primary songwriter for the alternative rock band the Czars from 1994 to 2006. He commenced his solo career in 2010 and he has had four UK Top 20 albums with Brighton’s Bella Union records, those being 2013’s ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ (No.16), 2015’s ‘Grey Tickles, Black Pressure’ (No.5), ‘Love Is Magic’ (No.17) and 2021’s ‘Boy From Michigan’ (No.8). He regularly sells out large concert halls including his Brighton Dome concert on 29th October 2018, when he performed a 19-song set. He has led a colourful life to say the least, having previously excessed in the usual temptations. Moving forward, Grant will be highlighting his adaptability when he will perform a number of concerts around the country when he will be singing the songs of Patsy Cline with Richard Hawley and Band. Locally, they will be playing Brighton Dome on Friday 22nd September – Purchase your tickets HERE.
Sheffield born 68 year old Stephen Mallinder has been producing musical sounds for an amazing 50 years! He was a founding member (with Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson) of the trailblazing Cabaret Voltaire, who initially delved primarily of experimentation with DIY electronics and tape machines, before morphing into various other genres along the way including industrial, electro, and acid house. After 21 years of service with Cabaret Voltaire, Mallinder moved on. In 1988, he recorded with members of Soft Cell in the band Love Street, and in 1989, he was a member of Acid Horse, a band which also featured Al Jourgensen of Ministry. He gained his Ph.D in music and popular culture in 2011 and now teaches Digital Music & Sound Art at the University of Brighton. He has worked with the rather lovely actress Jane Horrocks – who is in attendance this evening – writing music and performing, for the theatre production Cotton Panic, which debuted at Manchester International Festival in 2017. He released his first solo album in 35 years, entitled ‘Um Dada’ back in 2019 and his latest solo work is ‘Tick Tick Tick’, which dropped last July.
Phil Winter
Of the quartet, Phil Winter is very much the mystery man to me. I know that he is a member of Tunng, who are a folktronica outfit and that he has delivered synthesizer, bass (electric), sampling, noise and sound effects for the band. I also know that he is one-third of Wrangler. The other two members being the aforementioned Stephen Mallinder and Benge, which leads me nicely onto the final member of Creep Show.
Benge aka Ben Edwards
Completing the quartet is producer/musician Benge aka Ben Edwards, who was born in 1967. He specialises in instrumental electronic music and has amassed a large collection of electronic synthesisers, drum machines and studio equipment which is housed in his ‘Memetune Studio Complex’. Albums by Phil Winter’s band Tunng have been recorded there. Benge first came to my attention back in 2011 when he co-wrote and produced an album titled ‘Interplay’ with the legendary John Foxx (the former Ultravox! frontman) and they toured and recorded as John Foxx & The Maths. I met them both outside the Concorde 2 when they performed there at the time and thankfully have a photographic record to prove it. Benge is also half of Fader with their ‘First Light’ album being a must!
Superb and comprehensive review of a fantastic night. Great to meet you too Nick! Tony
You too Tony. Thanks for the comment.