Edge Festival at Electric Circus

Saturday 7^th August 2010

There’s a palpable air of expectancy around Milk, nurtured by the band’s mysteriously low profile (try googling them), and the word on the grapevine that components of the much celebrated Findo Gask and equally esteemed My Kappa Roots have combined in this new collective.

My first encounter with Findo Gask was at Homegame earlier this year, and I stood sidestage at Legends gobsmacked by just how tight they were, and it looks like drummer Michael Marshall has transplanted that tightness to this new outfit. The first things that grab me are the whipcrack snare shots and rattling hi-hats of the insistent, spiky sixteen-beat rhythms that carry the band’s sound.

Meanwhile, Pablo Clark, of My Kappa Roots renown, throws himself bodily into his new berth at the helm of Milk. Dressed in skinny jeans and baggy vest-top – both garments as pristine white as your daily pinta – he cavorts bodily about the stage, twisting and pogoing; and at one point manically thumping a tom hanging in his direction off the top of drum kit.

According to Chris Buckle’s recent Skinny article – just about the only decent reference point I can find to provide research for this review – guitar and keyboards are provided by Callum and Sam respectively. Little more is currently known of these two gents. Callum lurches forward from the lip of the stage, bequiffed and menacing, looking after the “bottom-end” of the band’s sound by favouring the bass strings of his big semi-acoustic six-string and occasionally tapping at a bass synth of some sort hidden amongst Sam’s stack of gadgets; while Sam himself busies himself with making his synths sound just like synths should – fat, squelchy and fuzzy – and looking achingly cool and aloof in a fitted houndstooth jacket with – inevitably – the collar turned up.

As the band sign off at the end of their set, Pablo Clark apologises for what he perceives as a messy set. I’m not sure I agree, and I don’t think the punters who have been bouncing enthusiastically around the front of the stage – and even grinding suggestively up against the venue’s structural pillars – would agree either. To me, Milk look likely to re-energise the local scene with a polished and accomplished brand of punk-pop. Okay, it might be a bit of a stretch to wheel out the “breath of fresh air” cliché at this point, as this ground has been well trodden since 1980s New Wave, but Milk certainly sound like they have a spiky, aggravated point to make and don’t care who hears it. And that’s usually not a bad thing.

FOUND take the stage for the headline slot shortly afterwards and embark on a showcase for the highly anticipated new album that’s due out before the end of the year.

The new songs have been leeching one-by-one into FOUND’s set for a good eighteen months or so now, and the last couple of times I’ve seen the band I’ve noted they seriously seem to be getting the hang of them. Something has definitely clicked, and I don’t think it’s just my own sense of familiarity. The arrangements of the new songs now sound nailed-on, while the performances, perhaps hesitant and lacking confidence a few months back, have achieved that unmistakeable FOUND swagger and poise.

Regrettably, the notorious Electric Circus sound gremlins rear their ugly heads during FOUND’s set. At one point frontman Ziggy Campbell unplugs both his bandmates’ backing-vocal mics mid-song in an attempt to eliminate a howling bout of feedback that’s defeated the soundman’s efforts to control. No soundman would take such drastic action as a compliment, but this venue does have difficulties with unorthodox instrumentation. Stick a four-to-the-floor rock band on stage and everything seems fine, as soon as a band get a bit tasty with the electronics – Meursault struggle here too – then the stage teeters on the brink of tumbling into a maelstrom of feedback.

Happily, this brief spot of bother doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the evening’s entertainment, bassist Tommy Perman even takes advantage of the moment for a spot of impromptu comedy, mugging with the unplugged mic and shouting his backing vocal lines at the top of voice, which wins the audience back in favour of the band.

Although that favour was never really in doubt. I don’t want to queer the pitch and get ahead of myself, but I have a sneaking suspicion FOUND’s new album might be a bit of a scorcher.