My third gig of the month!! At the tiny venue of the Portland Arms in Cambridge Asobi Seksu (Japanese translation: Playful Sex) and recent favourites Scanners were on the bill.
First up were Scanners - whom I saw impressively supporting Wedding Present in Norwich some two years ago - playing a shortish but tight set they did not dissapoint but did have some sound problems early on - "Joy" was a excellent starter though they only played a few new songs so it was a bit of a repeat of Norwich - very good in spite of that!
Brooklyn based Asobi Seksu were on Stage at 10.45pm and they ripped through their set in front of at least 80 people crammed in to the tinyest of venues - a completely brilliant wall of sound throughout, interspersed with the angelic vocals of the Japanese//American lead singer. They make Mogwai sound like Abba! Quite a few flashes of inspiration from My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth but the songs on the album have an excellent melodic flavour - live they are potent noise meisters with distortion to die for !!
