Asobi Seksu / Scanners

Last time I’d seen Scanners was in a snobby little café-come showcase gig in Texas, where the band were forced to play a short set in front of a group of 50 or so seated music industry executives and their significant others. It was about as rock n’roll as changing that disgusting smelly thing that clings to the inner basin of your toilet. Regardless, the band put on a sterling set and I wrote down on a bit of paper ‘Must see this band again’, then lost that bit of paper, and subsequently forgot about them.

Still, eight months or so later and the London quartet might be on the verge of cracking it, thanks to the upcoming release of ‘Raw’, a juicy power-pop piece of exquisiteness that has already made its way into a Fashion Rocks commercial and will more than likely be plaguing just about every music producing medium known to mankind in the not to distant future. It has that same instant appeal as The Caesar’s ‘Jerk It Out’, or The New Radicals ‘Get What You Give’.

For a while it looked like we weren’t going to get the aforementioned pop masterpiece as drummer Tom was feeling a bit under the weather, but after a few supportive jeers or unforgiving heckles (you never can really tell which) he decided that all was well and they could, after all, close the set with this fine single.

Far from a one hit wonder, Scanner’s are a punchy, excitable pop-rock group with vocals not too far removed from the likes of The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and PJ Harvey. The group are made up of two chaps, and two gals, all of whom who combine harmoniously for beautiful live renditions of tracks as glorious as the delectable ‘Lowlife’, a poignantly sombre number that manages to convey the same sense of mood that the lyrics dictate.

Undoubtedly Scanners were the highlight of the gig tonight, it was just a shame that Asbo Se...Asobi Sesu...Ab...some band I can’t pronounce, couldn’t nearly live up to the standards of the support group.

I’m still struggling to see what it was that made the crowd start to dwindle during the headliner’s performance. An unusual and quite brilliant singer, some typical mood evoking chord progressions, beautifully constructed ambient build-ups underlined by steady and appropriate bass lines – it should have all sounded so perfect on the ear, but instead it just came across as vaguely incomprehensible pretentious hyperbole of the musical variety, and live they are just very very dull.

The full sound that they have captivated on record so magnificently is reproduced live as well, but such a vast scope for improvisation seems to have been ignored. The songs are shorter than they need to be, occasionally threatening to go off on such an interesting tangent but then deciding not too – almost like an over protective father that takes his kids to Alton Towers then only lets them play in the little amusement arcade bit. It just should be way more fun than this!

Lead singer Yuki Chikudate’s vocals, as soothing and reaching as they were, seemed lost within a wall of nostalgia and ambient nonsense, and the whole group seemed desperate for some more danceable moments, the music lingering with no sense of direction.

Asobi Seksu are certainly full of potential and the tranquil beauty from which their music emanates is at times bewildering, but they’re lacking that vital component that makes a band captivating live – they’re just not that interesting.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.