Night Noise Team
Ronde De Nuit (NNT)
Knowing virtually nothing about Night Noise Team I took the moniker to be indicative of a Hardcore band, maybe even a Happy Hardcore ‘band’. My knives sharpened, I perused the album title Ronde De Nuit. “Hmm” I thought, “French Hardcore”.
I was wrong.
Typing that exact phrase into google – also wrong. Or right, depending on your proclivities.
What NNT (for that’s what I am calling them to save my weary fingers) do demonstrate is a nice line in arch miserablist pop. Their raison d’être (yeah, thanks) if you will is not the cod reggae high-jinx cluttering up what used to be known as Indie music, but something deeper.
From opener ‘Dead Port’ which saunters up to you all snake-hipped Belle and Sebastian, before arching its back to reveal the cavernous pool in it’s stare through to Rideau, a glorious vista emerges; shadow clung and claustrophobic.
This is Edinburgh not dressed in pomp nor finery, not couched in laughable gothic timbre, but in it’s microscopic mundanity It is a relief map of lives existing, and only just, under a hangover of sky. When the lyrics on ‘Café Noire at Midnight’ intern Leith Walk as a barrel, as a fish tail caught in mid beat it pulls you in to stand there amongst neon and under rain.
The songs combine the foreboding and glamour so redolent in the music emanating from Manchester in the 80’s. The clash of the 9 to 5 rhythm with that of the weekend’s abandon. ‘Detonate’ demonstrates it best – the flash of synth piggybacking on the riffing bass whilst the vocals scream “I realised that I didn’t love you”.
The theme is continued throughout the tracks, but it never seems forced or false. The chords are dragged up and presented to you in a resigned “it’s not going to do, but it’s all I have” attitude. It demands more of your time. It remains austere and diffident and yet feels confidential, imparting a knowledge that you both share. Like The Smiths a lifetime ago, it urges you to claim it as your own.
Another band to add to the growing roster of great Edinburgh bands that are doing something truly exciting.
Jamie Brown
