TUXEDOMOON
Madrid Colegio Mayor San Juan Evangelista
April 19, 2005
by John Gill
Reunited, lean, muscular, stroppy and cruising for a bruising. Tuxedomoon is a
monstrous and beautiful thing to behold. Sneak into their soundcheck and you’ll
see what makes this group unique. Drumless, they are anchored by the seismic
bass of the Buddha-like Peter Principle. Flamboyant violinist, guitarist and
singer Blaine Reininger tunes up toying with fragments of Cream’s “Sunshine Of
Your Love” and The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie”. Reedsman, pianist and fellow singer
Steven Brown dips into Coltrane’s version of “My Favourite Things” and others
besides. Horn player Luc Van Lieshout just blows a gale and tinkers with his
harmonica. Visual artist George Kakanakis manipulates live video of the
musicians and Pollock-like abstractions on a large screen.
Brown is exquisitely melancholy on grand piano, and insouciantly elegant on his
reeds. When he and Reininger duet on vocals, Blaine has great fun playing the
schmaltzy crooner, while Brown summons up an icy dread. Reininger is the Sinatra
to Brown’s Jim Morrison and, in a sense, the Twain to his Poe. Van Lieshout
horns are an elemental force with echoes of Miles’s mute.
Pop all these into a particle accelerator with added electronics and treatments
- Blaine singing through his miked-up violin, making space station alarm noises
with his foot pedals, or letting rip with apocalyptic jackhammer sequencers (“Diario
Di Un Egoista”) - and you get the quantum physics that is a Tuxedomoon gig. This
comeback tour is dominated by 2004’s ravishing release Cabin In The Sky,
although there is a brace of favourites: “The Waltz” off Holy Wars, and the
title track from Desire.
There are moments of quiet beauty, not least Brown’s languid piano and noir
reeds, and at moments when Van Lieshout’s harmonica and Reininger’s violin
produce mutant bluegrass, but there are also sonic barrages that can pin you to
the wall. I don’t remember a Tuxedomoon concert this raw and visceral, not least
the full-on Situationist funk of “Luther Blisset” - imagine Miles Davis and
Wayne Shorter jamming with A Certain Ratio with some Charles Ives-like
intertextuality at work.
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