A record I missed last year. By a band playing a couple of miles down the road from me tomorrow evening. Forty five minutes in the company of Gnoomes Ax Ox has convinced me to wander down. It's fascinating stuff.
I've used the seafaring metaphor in here before. Like Ahab's Pequod adrift on the ocean's waves in search of quarry for the Captain's Table. Not every fish of interest and nutritious value gets caught in your nets. I missed this fine record last year. But I've noticed it now and I have Wandering Oak to thank for this.
Wandering Oak is a friendly bearded guy called Walter Allison. He's an Event Organiser essentially. He sets up Indie Gigs at venues such as The Cumberland Arms, The Cluny, Xerox and Lubber Fiend in the Newcastle area. I'm very glad he does. They're a mainstay of my gigging experience.
I like what's going on on Ax Ox. Gnoomes are a Russian band and they take elements of their great nation's cultural, literary and musical traditions, meld it onto Krautrock. Prog and Indie ones and set them off on tracks of their own invention.
There are moments when the band break into mass monk chanting and the effect is deeply mesmerising and hypnotic. So you get The Brothers Karamazov meets Tago Mago. It's fantastic frankly.
So this is what I'll be doing on Sunday night and on top of that I get The Cumberland Arms and its wondrous terrace and interiors..Great way to send Easter Sunday.
Think they should be good live. I have been following them on Spotify since the last album, I think, but managed to miss this. Looking at the release date, I was probably still in the throes of COVID, which might explain it. Will have a listen!
ReplyDelete