Transmusicales Day Two

Various

Rennes Venues

5/12/08

Have you ever thought that Editors might be even more amazing if only they had a Debbie Harry impersonator on keyboards and sometimes sang in Hungarian? Say what you will about, say, Reading or T In The Park – for all their charms, they don’t address issues like this. Transmusicales, on the other hand, tends to adopt a more choons sans frontieres approach, meaning that, in theory, it’s possible to see virtually anything here. And given how the weekend’s going thus far, there’s a very good chance of your correspondent having seen everything before the festival’s over…

Answering our burning opening question at Ubu (grrreat venue, by the way – proper superior circuity stuff with unfaililngly lovely staff and a seductive underground edge) are Hangmas, who, just five minutes ago, we heard another punter discussing in swearily epiphanous terms. And quite right too: there’s something pleasingly fannish about them – they’re clearly enormously in love with those darker moments down the indie disco, while Endre’s marionette dancing is both familiar and highly endearing – but also the sense that they’re just starting to realise not only the possibilities of what they’re doing but also how unselfconsciously adorable the results are, rendering them a thoroughly joyous division in their own right. After that, there’s a bit of an exodus to Bon Iver, but, ever one for the underdog, your Fly sticks with Nag Nag Nag, which proves to be none too unsmart a move. They may not sound like they’d be terribly at home in the celebrated mid-noughties club they share their moniker with, but they’re a terrific blend of swaggering robo-rock and strident slink, frequently resembling the elusive excellence of Sons And Daughters, and their face-flaying cover of ‘Tame’ is a highlight and a half. We don’t envy Le Corps Mince De Françoise having to follow them, particularly since, frustratingly, they appear beset by technical troubles, but they persevere womanfully with their avuncular Chicks On Speed-appreciating clatter regardless, securing victory through valiance.

Early doors at key-and-crackingly-cavernous site Parc Expo after that, but the Naive New Beaters have drawn a substantial crowd regardless, and they really don’t disappoint from the minute they walk on stage with lit sparklers for epaulettes. Oh, alright, not all of them; frontman David Boring is, after all, the techno Mick Jagger, and his hair therefore constitutes a fire hazard. It gets no party-startier than this, mind you – they’re responsible for some of the smiliest Eurodisco we’ve ever heard, while guitarist Martin Luther B.B. King slices a shiny rock sword through proceedings with a slobbery springer spaniel of a performance. Nothing wrong – indeed, in this instance, pretty much everything right – with being slightly silly, and that’s an attitude that Success seem happy to adhere to in spades. When we walk in on them, they’ve got locked in a Battles-style groove, which then gives way to a perfect 1950s rock’n'roll pastiche, followed by some rave that could be no camper before it explodes into a ‘Cubik’-like feedback meltdown followed by the dissolving bubbles of acid that grace the end of Hardfloor’s ‘Acperience’. Oh, and then they go hip-hop. Really, there’s no reason in the world why a band like this should even exist; that they do, and in such monumental fashion, simply makes the finds-of-the-day list even more ludicrously great than it already was.

And, fortunately, there’s just enough time to catch a little of Canadian combo Creature, who we decide would be the ideal house band for Kenny Everett, were he still around: rooted in the dancefloor, riotously percussion-heavy, and defiantly refusing to skimp on the naughty decadence. Just the setup, you’d've thought, for Padded Cell, yet, tremendous records notwithstanding, they wrongfoot themselves carelessly here by playing the Orbital card recklessly hard while ignoring the fact that their appeal lies along the Depeche Mode / Miss Kittin axis, and tweaking and dispatching their signature ‘Word Of Mouth’ with indecent haste. Madness, we tells ya! Showing far better judgement are Hello Bye Bye, who might be a more conventional affair than we’ve got used to here – there’s definitely a touch of Captain to them, though that’s a bonus in our book – but are still prone to a Cocteausian touch here and a sitar solo there. They’re also doing their bit to resuce indie piano’s good name, as are White Rabbits, who appear torn between being Starsailor and being Turin Brakes, though, wisely, they sound like they stopped listening to both long before the hilarity of recent releases set in.

We make a sharp exit midway through, however, as where it’s at is Hall 9 thanks to the four turntables and a microphone of Birdy Nam Nam. They’re greeted religiously, even in silhouette, as local heroes, and there’s something warmingly Kraftwerkian about seeing four fairly unassuming men making brilliant noises that you almost feel they can’t possibly be doing – there’s some synchronised pitchshifting that really stretches credulity, but it’s impossible to argue with the sea of fists it generates. More ecstatically entertaining than the Scratch Perverts or Avalanches have ever managed live, it’s a masterclass of a performance with one eye on

France‘s noble heritage of gigantic dance music and the other on beckoning superstardom. Transmusicales has a great history of showcasing bands for whom enormity knocked not long after (including the Ting Tings and Santogold last year alone), and there’s little doubt that this is the night where the

Nam earn their wings on that score.

Iain Moffat