Can a gig ever be so much like itself it’s, well, a bit of a let down? That’s the thought that occurs after wafting out of this shindig held at The Glue Factory. A special event for the excellent Glasgow Film Festival, Hexa present that vexing conundrum. The thought of the following conversation occurs:
“So, Hexa, having thought about David Lynch’s aesthetic and having thought about a musical reaction to it, I can confirm, you sounded exactly like I expected.”
“Well, cheers. What the fuck were you expecting, Eurovision?”
“Mm, I see your point.”
See, hardly fair is it? David Lynch’s Factory Photographs – for it is they – are more or less what you’d imagine them to be. Monochrome, elegant, blasted, post-industrial and ominous. You knew they would be. And they’re great. And Lawrence English and Jamie Stewart’s take on it – loads of wires, piercing electronica… monochrome, blasted and industrial, is sort of great, too. Think, the vicious and anti-social efforts by bands like Whitehouse, but a little more user-friendly. In fact, it’s not unlike a lot of the incidental music used by Lynch himself in his cinematic outings. The sinister creeping of the limousine in Mulholland Drive, for example.
What is fascinating is the degree of improvisation going on. There is an album on Room40 but, watching Stewart from Xiu Xiu – who incidentally have covered actual Lynch music themselves – watching the beautifully grim slideshow morph above him, it does seem that the various screeches and groans are being created on the hoof – to a degree at least. Audience interaction is minimal but then that’s overrated, anyway. We want concentration and we want it now.
And there you have it. It’s Art with a capital ‘A’. That may sounded like inverted snobbery, but it really isn’t. Just, in the desire to challenge – as well as reflect – the music has become rather predictable. Something one does not often say about Mr Lynch, himself.
All that said, the concept of reversing the usual process of music visuals – make the song then make the video – is a cool one. And the threats from onstage certainly match the shadows from the mind of our, soon to be revised, Twin Peaks creator. Does what it says on the tin. Not a lot of surprises. With one, incidental, but nevertheless pleasurable exception. It’s only halfway through that I realise the periodic crashing percussion is not coming from on stage but is, in fact, a catastrophically noisy bog door slamming shut repeatedly. Now that certainly is a new one.