The Hundred In The Hands
Madame Jo Jo’s, London
13/07/2010

In ‘The Right Stuff’, the classic 1979 book on the space race, Tom Wolfe divided the human race into those who have it, and those who don’t. On this showing, it’s certain that MNDR, a bolshy one-woman electro-dynamo all the way from Oakland, California, most certainly has it, and could probably single-handedly propel herself into orbit if need be.

Alone onstage save for her own stacatto breakbeats, she flicks dials on her music box and body pops whilst beaming through oversized glasses like a mouse-haired rave-nerd. Her mouth opens almost as wide as her glasses in an expression of sheer joy and her infectious energy on ‘Jump In’ (“This is a song about partying in Oakland…cos it is buck-fucking-wild out there…”) gets punters’ feet twitching, tugging them towards the dance floor.

Whether Brooklyn-based The Hundred In The Hands have The Right Stuff is less clear.

The veins pulse on the fibrillating fist of guitarist Jason Friedman as he rapidly scratches away at his gleaming Rickenbacker guitar, carving himself a wall of reverb to house Eleanore Everdell’s spectral vocals. Nobody notices him though, because try as he might, all eyes are on Everdell. She’s something of a centripetal force, drawing crowd members in like a siren.

Wearing black mini-heels, a playsuit, and a studied frown, Everdell flexes her slender legs and coyly toys with a Korg. She plays the part of the continental chanteuse well and ensnares the audience with her shimmering Bjork-meets-Vanessa Paradis voice, but the problem is, her singing is so hypnotic that we are looking and listening but not paying attention.

Although The Hundred In The Hands have the upbeat basslines of post-punk and the fluttering synths of disco, there is still something lacking. ‘Dressed In Dresden’ and stand-out track ‘Tom Tom’ are decent enough, and the duo move seamlessly from one song to another, but it’s clear that they have nothing to match the chilled euphoria of something like Music Go Music’s ‘Warm In The Shadows’. By setting the temperature to icy and detached, they end up being too cold for anyone to properly latch onto.

Michael Bennett