MUTIMEDIA: From Inner Space to Outer Space 

 

 
With the resurgence in popularity of live music, and the growing success of diverse interactive events such as Secret Cinema’s hugely popular film screenings and Punchdrunk’s immersive theatre, punters are starting to expect more for their money than just a straight-up performance. After years of gig-going, I’m certainly on the lookout for nights out that offer something more than paying through the nose to be distracted by scenesters filming an act on their mobile phones. So I was intrigued by the prospect of ‘From Inner Space to Outer Space’, a science fiction-inspired mixture of live acts, short films, a multi-projector light show and nostalgic TV all staged in the comfort of The Duke of York’s,  Brighton’s 100-year-old arts cinema.
 
The evening was dreamt up by local duo The Simonsound, whose debut album, Reverse Engineering, is an offbeat blend of retro-electronica, spaced out mood music and funk-tinged dance beats that has been championed by the likes of DJ Food and Gilles Peterson. Support came from Laura J. Martin, a Liverpool-born, Leeds-based, one-woman-band, with the ten minute shorts Space Place and Kosmodron book-ending the acts. A set of obscurities and rarities by DJ Format rounded things off.

Instead of the usual half-hour of waiting around between performances, we were treated to ‘Timelash’, a wigged out, highly camp and (unintentionally) hilarious episode of Gerry Anderson’s 1970s sci-fi series UFO. At the ridiculously low price of a tenner a ticket, this event was sold out, warmly received and light years away from the soulless, corporate-sponsored stadium shows and lazy ‘best of’ tours that seem to be de rigueur.
 
Martin was a revelation: captivating, oozing talent and looking genuinely thrilled to be playing. Prodigiously accomplished on the flute, mandolin and piano, Martin is loosely in the vein of Kate Bush and Joanna Newsom, but has a distinct sound that makes those comparisons a guide rather than a pigeonhole. The use of looped vocals, instruments and drum beats creates a fresh sound blending the organic with the electronic. (Her influences range from Japanese folklore to Lalo Schifrin, The Wu Tang Clan and David Bowie.) With a firecracker stage presence and affable personality, her set was a showcase for an artist in bloom. Martin’s future looks very bright indeed.
 

 
After the cheap-looking, badly acted (but strangely watchable) UFO had the audience whooping and laughing, The Simonsound proceeded to ramp up the atmosphere with their spaced out soundscapes and punchy beats. Main man Simon James, resplendent in a NASA jumpsuit, was flanked by a flight deck of vintage synths, tape machines and assorted electronic instruments of which Heath Robinson would have been proud. Ian Helliwell’s psychedelic projector show provided a very apt backdrop for the band’s seriously eclectic sound.
 
The Simonsound inhabit the world of soundtracks one minute and dance-floor grooves the next, and touch on many other genres in between. Tracks such as ‘Man and the Machine’, ‘Against the Clock’ and ‘Space Case’ flowed into each other creating a continuous sonic mix reminiscent of a DJ set. As a comment under one of their YouTube posts say: ‘this shit is sophisticated’. Joined onstage by Martin for their remix of her track Spy, and also by local singer / musician Debbie Clare for the moody ‘Bad Love’, The Simonsound were refreshingly difficult to pin down. These two guest vocalists, one skittish and delicate, the other seductive and full-bodied, added a rich layer to the band’s set, mixed as they were with heavy bass rhythms and bleeping melodies.
 
A reworking of Kraftwerk’s ‘Tour de France’, re-christened ‘Tour de Mars’, was greeted with loud approval. Released as a single, it is the perfect embodiment of The Simonsound’s work: unselfconscious, wide- ranging, gloriously upbeat and intelligently crafted. Still a fledgling live act, the band have all the necessary elements in place to become favourites on the gig circuit; and, as they are booked to play following a screening of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at the Royal Festival Hall in April, their audience will inevitable increase.
 
This event was as much fun as anything I’ve been to all year, and showcased two diverse but equally impressive acts that both deserve a much bigger audience. It was a gig, Jim, but not as we know it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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