Drinks are two superstars of the lo-fi garage rock/odd pop scene; Tim Presley, an American lo-fi garage rock artist who has worked with Ty Segall and The Fall as well as his own band White Fence, and Cate Le Bon from Wales who has worked with everyone from Neon Neon and Richard James (Aphex Twin) to the Manic Street Preachers and The Chemical Brothers. With the musical prowess the pair hold, you would expect more than a safe and predictable sound, and indeed they have both come together to create one of the most interesting albums of the year. Hermits On Holiday almost runs away from the norm – its (some might say) odd songs that come across as garish nonsense on a first listen, unravel into charming invention which is full of fascinating experimentalism and effortless spontaneity. A journey into barefaced and presumptuous surreal pop.  When listening to the album I couldn’t really imagine their music live and with only one album of material to fall back on, what would a Drinks gig bring?

 

I entered the upstairs of The Hope & Ruin to the mystical magic sounds of Stacking Chairs. Imagine walking in on a bunch of tone death Clangers on acid making disjointed experimental music. The plunderphonic sound collage used lots of surreal and weird samples, and I mean weird. The set went through peeks and troughs where the music danced with a melody before galloping off into glitchy tempos covered in jarring effects and homemade instruments. If you like music that tests your opinion on what you think music is or can be (much like Hermits On Holiday), you would love Streaking Chairs. As you can imagine in a room half full of people dressed like mods, it was hard to keep the crowds attention and overall it had a mixed response. However, the wonderfully trippy and intriguing ideas were a hit with me.

 

Drinks came onstage to restore “normality”, pretty much going straight into the first song off their album ‘Laying Down Rock’ and whipping the crowd into an instant Drinks frenzy. The astounding simplicity of the Drinks sound harks back to the psychedelia driven music of a 1960s Velvet Underground, creating a loose yet absorbing experience which goes straight to the head. Their performance was impressively close to the albums sound, putting you through gauntlets of jolting and difficult moments which always arise in pure musical bliss. Cate’s vocals are glorious and can only be likened to those of Nico (The Velvet Underground) with Tim as an architect of sound and melody on his guitar. Together, they have an almighty understanding of music, relaying their guitar and vocals with it both complementing each other completely. This was by no means just the Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley show, as they were joined by the bassist and drummer from White Fence who more than lived up to their compatriots with ease, making the final song ‘She Walks So Fast’ one of the many highlights of a fantastic show.

 

I could happily have had them start all over again as Drinks songs have quite an addictive effect, being strange but completely assured. Once it was all over I almost felt a void – being the final date of their tour, would Hermits On Holiday ever be performed in its entirety again or would Drinks even play again?
Iain Lauder