Experiencing Balloons perform is like jovially skull-fucking a lobotomised cosmos – ethereal-wackjob-synth-sensualities thunder out amonst off-kilter time signatures which will slur your limbs into a delirium of twitching joy.
Set opener ‘I’d trade it all in for a hawk’, is testament to this – a jiving, dooms-shanty of pure psychotic genius that makes the audience erupt into a delighted, disordered mess. When the escapist-circus-fuckeries of ‘Part Hideout’ follow out, it has the effect of a bumper-pack of Smarties on a toddler, and riles one group of teenagers in particular into an over-excited, pogo-dumb, flailing mess – the likes of which haven’t been seen locally since Kerry Katona ‘sorted herself out’.
The set develops in much the same way – propelling itself forward with excitingly unpredictable gusto – relying on a sound which is as varied as it is consistent and experimental without abandoning the realms of its own specific, peculiar idiosyncrasies.
Ocarina hears the five-piece hit on Joy Division territory, exhibiting some impressive dual vocals and a gut-pounding stomp of an ending, whilst the epic, jaunty dramatics of AV 10 Broncho demonstrate the bands odd talent to produce a song that could be played at a disco-after-party for the premiere of a wartime docu-soap about spy-planes.
Amongst a revelry of body-popping-synth-moves and caterwauling-power-fists (bring back the power fist, we say) Balloons manage to blend the majestic with the truly disconcerting – the unnameable and the curios. The audience are lulled into sublime states of dreaminess only to be suddenly mauled by fantastically devious barrages of noise – kind of like getting attacked by a raptor in the middle of a sweet shop.
Ending somewhere around the organ-grinding psychosis that is ‘Old Anatoli’, the crowd is an ear-to-ear united grin – a fuzz of over-excitement and inexplicable, corrupt dance moves. Basically, Balloons are like a serotonin-Viagra, and if you didn’t leave this performance with a unending smile the size of King-Kongs cock, then you’ve obviously lost the will to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment