Project Description
REGURGITATOR
with SEJA and MINDY WENG WANG
at the Canberra Theatre
2 February 2018 (Live review)
Reviewer – Benjamin Smith
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There are maybe five or six albums in the history of popular music that have exerted influence equivalent to 1967’s Velvet Underground and Nico. Sometimes referred to as The Banana Album because of its iconic Warhol cover, Lou Reed’s love letter to bondage, heroin and the urban decay of New York City was nothing short of an artistic revolution. It is the blueprint for much of the avant garde movement, an enormous portion of the more considered side of punk and the entirety of the art rock and pop that flourished in the decades that followed. Without it the careers of everyone from David Bowie onwards may never have been possible.
How fitting then that Regurgitator, a local band so clearly and directly moved by the Banana Album, should be touring a show that replicates the 11 track masterpiece in its entirety. Regurgitator as a band have pursued a courageously experimental musical agenda since the release of their self-titled ep, sometimes referred to as The Hamburger Ep because of its own iconic cover art. If not a direct tribute to the Velvets’ work, Hamburger’s distorted noise and sideways rhythmic patterns most definitely share some splicing of its DNA.
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The current show was initially conceived of to coincide with the 2016 Ai Weiwei / Andy Warhol exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It has since had airings in Brisbane, Adelaide and a smattering of other venues including MONA FOMA and the Sydney Festival. Tonight’s line-up also features vocalist and keysmaster Seja, who initially made a name for herself with Brisbane synth punk act Sekiden, but who has had a couple of pretty experimental solo records of her own and has been Regurgitating since some time in ’07. Just in case an experimental band doing an experimental record with an experimental guest artist wasn’t experimental enough, Regurgitator also enlisted the talents of Mindy Weng Wang playing the guzheng, a 2500 year old 21 stringed Chinese instrument like a zither but with movable bridges.
You could be forgiven for thinking that all of this sounds like a recipe for a chaotic and intolerably self-indulgent noisemess. You’d be wrong, though. All of the elements combined, including the perfectly intimate Playhouse at the Canberra Theatre, to create a rare warmth between the audience and the band. Simple psychedelic projections playing on a screen behind them added to the dreamy bliss of the whole caper.
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In thinking about the Banana Album it can be difficult to separate it from its cultural status, but seeing it performed this way is a striking reminder that the beauty of the record lies in its lovingly crafted songs. Reed’s lyricism on tracks like Heroin and Venues in Furs stands up to any of the works of the romantic and beat poets he so greatly admired. John Cale, Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison took Reed’s poetic outpourings and rendered them with lush grooves and, where appropriate, striking discord. In recreating those sounds Regurgitator remain pretty faithful to the original arrangements whilst adding a treatment that could only have been theirs. German vocalist Nico’s contribution to the original record is often overlooked, but is in my view crucial to the overall success of the album’s sound and brings a vital balance to what could otherwise have been a challenge without reprieve. Likewise it is that German-born Seja’s contribution adds the colour necessary to take the performance from good to great. Her presence on the stage also brings a kind of calming influence to the nervous energy Ben Ely and Quan Yeomans have managed to maintain after 25 years on stage together.
At times Mindy Weng Wang’s work on the guzheng, intended to replace Cale’s viola on the original record, is drowned out by the bigger sounds of the rest of the band. When it does find space to shine through the guzheng, reveals itself to be an instrument of sublime diversity, alternately delicate and violent, gossamer and aggressive.
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One of the benefits of being a band like Regurgitator, who have spent decades forging a relationship with audiences, is that there is a trust that allows for this kind of show. There isn’t a huge market for this sort of thing, and audience sizes would lay testament to that, but the crowds who do show up are prepared to give themselves over entirely. They allow themselves to be taken places by this band most other acts could only dream about. For the 60 or so minutes this performance lasts, that trust is rewarded by a band equally prepared to allow the music to generate its own atmosphere. That this particular rendition of the show is coming together unusually well is clear from the band’s demeanour.
For good measure they play a single track not on Velvet Underground and Nico, the fabulous Rock N Roll from 1970’s Loaded album; Lou Reed’s tribute to the music that rescued him from despair. Thank Christ for that.
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