Savages singer Jehnny Beth recently joined a TV debate on rock’n’roll, sharing her desire for something “pure, authentic and ephemeral”. Coincidentally, on the night it airs, the band are busy trying to make good on her ambition in the rarefied confines of an art gallery.
For tonight’s show, the band have collaborated with brooding two-piece A Dead Forest Index and choreographer Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome on a special two-part piece, What I’m Seeing; The Sun. It’s for Station To Station, billed as the Barbican’s “living exhibition”, although with a reverent audience seated on white benches and standing along pristine wall, it’s more like a fashion show than a gig.
Gemma Thompson uncoils a low hum from her solitary guitar and two impassive dancers, dressed in white and holding small balls of light, walk slowly backwards between the crowd and the stage, their feet bathed in torchlight, held by similarly stoic, black-clad figures following them.
Bassist Ayse Hassan and drummer Fay Milton join Thompson, swiftly followed by A Dead Forest Index – Sam Sherry sits at a harmonium and brother, Adam, hunches over his guitar, his voice floating lightly over a typically haunting soundscape. Then complete darkness falls and the song erupts into Savages’ territory – anxious vocals, thundering drums and grinding guitar climbing to a dizzying crescendo.
When the commotion falls to an undulating buzz, Beth slips centre-stage, holding a book. Flicking on a small light, she reads: “If someone wants to change the world, he must begin with himself.” As guitars build and both drumkits roar into life, Beth screams dramatically, her face a picture of pain, yet her voice sounds strangely faint.
It’s a moment that sums up a show where sound doesn’t quite balance with performance. Balletic shadows flicker against a screen of static projected on to all four walls in a clever interplay of light and dark, but Beth’s impassioned vocals are often crushed by heavy instrumentation. Nonetheless, this 45-minute set of completely new, wholly intense music transcends its surroundings to meet Beth’s aspirations for rock’n’roll.
