Fennesz - St Giles-in-the-Fields, London

Do you remember the first handful of gigs you went to? Do you remember the excitement that built up over the preceding weeks? Do you remember saving up to buy a tour t-shirt that you would practically live in for the next month and how each gig was exponentially better than the last? Well I do. And I wish it could be like the old days again.

Recently, I feel like I’ve lost something of the enthusiasm I once had for concert going – tickets over £10 will make me think twice, my bus ride to London seems to be getting longer and I haven’t bought a tour t-shirt in years. But when I read a few months ago that Fennesz would be playing a little church in London, supported by Grouper and Natural Snow Buildings, I felt like I was thirteen all over again. Perfect line-up, perfect venue – here was a gig that felt like an ‘event’ rather than just another run-of-the-mill, come-and-hear-the-songs-a-bit-louder-than-at-home concert.

I arrived about halfway into the Natural Snow Buildings set and on entering the main room was immediately enveloped in a beautiful, deep ambience of echoing guitars and fragile vocals. It was everything I had hoped, the natural reverb of the church venue elevated the French duo’s immersive soundscapes to near transcendence – the audience was silent, utterly captivated.

So this was, by all accounts, a good start and when Natural Snow Buildings left the stage I couldn’t help thinking that we were in for a very special evening.

Next on the bill was Liz Harris (a.k.a. Grouper) whose recent, critically acclaimed Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill confirmed her place as one of the most noteworthy ambient/shoegaze artists presently on the scene. And opening with a sound collage of voices buried in the hum of radio static, Grouper’s set certainly began promisingly. But it soon became clear that Liz Harris was expecting an unnatural amount of patience from her audience and continued to move infuriatingly slowly through her lengthy set - interspersing her long, slow songs with long, slow sections of sound collage. And with only an acoustic guitar and some effects pedals, Grouper’s live sound lacked any real depth or texture – in contrast to her beautifully layered recorded music. The songs themselves, when they came, were lacking to say the least; Harris steered clear entirely of her excellent recent material, opting instead to play a set of decidedly forgettable new pieces. A disappointment, then. But with Fennesz (one of the most significant electronic artists of his generation) still to play, all was not lost.

Taking to the stage with a guitar and an entire table top of effects pedals and laptops, Fennesz proceeded to create the brutally loud, epic soundscapes of distorted guitar and glitchy electronics that he is known for. His set felt more like one continuous piece than a collection of tracks, and was all the more enjoyable for it – the different ‘movements’ melted into each other, flowing seamlessly from noise outbursts to beautiful calm and back again. It didn’t take long for me to completely loose myself in the wash of music and noise reverberating around the dimly lit church.

But after only just over half an hour and as Fennesz seemed to be building to his biggest crescendo yet, the sound completely cut out. It is unclear whether this was due to a curfew or a technical issue (or ‘Jesus’ as one joker suggested) as no word of explanation was offered to the audience – even Fennesz looked confused as to exactly what had happened. But whatever the cause, this premature end to the evening completely destroyed the atmosphere and tension that had been building throughout Fennesz’s impressive set – it was all over in a whimper

So, let down by technical issues and an extremely dull performance courtesy of Grouper, this evening of music did little to live up to expectations. That is not to say I wouldn’t go to see Fennesz again (the 45 minutes of music that he played were excellent) but, unfortunately, I can only describe this show as an utter disappointment.

Tom