Friday night gigs are a tough one, but Moon Hooch were a spot on choice by Club The Mammoth. Their music is forceful and primal, and their performance was high-energy to the extreme. The crowd were treated to a straightforward Friday night dance event but one that was also musically, as well as visually, impressive.

Dubbing their music “cave music”, their style essentially recreates a variety of electronic music with live instruments. The forms are the same as club bangers, only they’re renovated using a drum kit and two saxophones. It’s an old concept, but the prominence of brass makes it both original and very, very fun to see live. The use of a baritone sax effectively as a bass synth also really does make it feel like cave music – even more so when they give it a blaring amplification by sticking a battered traffic cone into it.

Moon Hooch developed and toned their style busking in New York subways, and through experience can pitch the energy of a song like experts. Their performance had the same flow as an intense DJ set, with every song following a series of build-ups and drops, each one heavier than the last, while at the same time steadily climbing to the end and climax of the gig. Since their days busking, they’ve incorporated more electronic elements, and now run their saxophones through Ableton to add some pretty course and beastly effects. However, far from ruining their style, they’ve only amplified it and made it more meaty still.

The players onstage went all-out physically, matching the spirit of the music. The sweat was pouring off them, and hearing the music you could understand how, like the crowd, they couldn’t resist leaping around – although the drummer looked bizarrely serene as he smashed out drum‘n’bass grooves at tremendous volume and with lightning-fast hands.

They were obviously on a mission to make their crowd dance. For some bands this would be to the detriment of the quality of their playing, but Moon Hooch were sure to remind everyone that they studied at a school for jazz and contemporary music with some extremely jazzy solos on the brass – some of which were impressive just for the technical mastery they required. The drummer also brought his A-game, and jumped on the tablas for a couple of frantic songs. He must have possessed incredible stamina to play for as long and fast as he did.

It has to be said that as their set started intense, and simply rose and rose in energy; the excitement reached peak level quite long before the gig ended. This meant that the atmosphere became monochrome when the crowd literally could give no more. This is perhaps one problem with a band and style who are uncompromising and extreme. Having said that, the majority of the crowd were right there with the band and demanded two encores, although the venue raised the house lights after the first – you can’t argue with that.
Ben Noble

Website: moonhooch.com
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