I was intrigued when I saw Moulettes and The Sly Tones were sharing a bill so I made my way down to The Haunt to see if it would work! Admittedly I’d never seen Moulettes before, or listened to much of their stuff. I had vague ideas of them being a fairly esoteric folk group so I was imagining a real clash when they came up against the Sly Tones brand of progressive rock music.

The Sly Tones play a complicated blend of styles taking in elements of bands like The Doors, Tom Waits and The Mars Volta only to regurgitate them as something else entirely. They dress up with Kiss-like face paint and seem eager to offend you, with some hilarious masturbatory lyrical references on offer. Part way through their set this evening the group somehow morphed into a Gospel choir and lead-singer Ashley Edwards adopted the role of an insane preacher sending percussionist Robin O’Keefe into evangelical spasms as he placed his healing hands upon him! This is an incredibly tight band, with a theatrical show that has to be seen to be believed.

After a short break Moulettes took to the stage, putting me into a momentary state of confusion and panic! Trapped at the back of the room I couldn’t see where the voices were coming from and realised I ought to have prepared better for the show by at least reading up on the band before heading down. For those who are as uninitiated as I was you ought to know that Moulettes have what might be considered unusual instrumentation nowadays: most songs are built around drums, double bass, cello, violin and bassoon with guitar and autoharp making appearances from time to time. Lead singer Hannah Miller plays cello most of the time, so it was hard to make her out from the back of the room, although I could make out the beautiful piece of floral set design she was sitting in front of.

Once I got into a more relaxed position and had figured out exactly what I was looking at I started to really get into the show. Moulettes instrumentation might lead you to expect neo-classical or pure folk stylings but the sound they produce live is much tougher and far more progressive. The sound on the evening was superb, I wasn’t sure if the players were running their instruments through modern effects processes or if the engineer had compressed them through the desk but what came out of the speakers was a lot thicker and more solid than I could have imagined. The voices blended beautifully together and there were several earworms in their repertoire which have stuck firmly in my head. In case you haven’t realised yet I was a fast convert, by the time the band were joined onstage by guest star and local legend Arthur Brown (famous for his song ‘Fire’ – although I couldn’t tell you the name of the track he sang on tonight) I was in seventh heaven, totally in love with the sound of bowed strings playing powerful rock. The only disappointment on the night was that Moulettes had to stop at 10pm and no amount of cheering could get them out for an encore. 

Adam Kidd