More about: Scalping

An element of what stops the purists widening their simultaneously broadchurch and elitist definitions of alternative music to at least have a gander at the club genre is the feeling that it lacks a ‘performed nature’; that it’s simply pressing buttons and occasionally fiddling with a low pass filter to create the illusion of progression. Wholly untrue as this is, it remains bewitching to see SCALPING create cathartic and cerebral techno in a pretty traditionally staffed, albeit heavily improvisational, rock band.

Our venue is Salford’s White Hotel (mostly black and inhospitable), the closest the city gets to a Berlin style den of dance music destitution. Tonight it plays host to Bristol’s SCALPING, a four-piece audiovisual band that play EBM via post-rock and techno, and supporting act, the experimental Manchester based Mandy, Indiana.

The latter play first, serving guitar-squealing stomp whilst frontwoman Valentine Caulfield snarls in French. The music at times recalls 1980s industrial, others New York no-wave. The caustic fits and starts of the vocal delivery paired with militarist percussion, nagging bass drones and guitar stabs give the music a sadistic groove that sparks patches of slam dancing in some parts and beard stroking nods in others. Part Lydia Lunch, part Cabaret Voltaire, with a smattering of je ne sais quoi, Mandy, Indiana are a commanding presence and are met with a rapturous response after their lengthy set closer.

The air of violent unease thickens as SCALPING take the stage to a backdrop of unsettlingly apocalyptic science fiction, epileptic lighting and psychedelic body horror. The visuals, curated by artist Jason Baker, complement the surging sounds that burgeon from the group. The occasional ethereal choral swell is the closest SCALPING get to vocal accompaniment—wailing guitar instead provides the high end to the purgative march of the music.

The melted faces and writhing tentacles that take over the screen as the set progresses, aptly portraying the set as the group and audience become locked in to the power of repetition and the set begins to tap into industrial metal that summons headbangs and robotic gesticulation from the room. The volume is at times deafening, as if Children of God era Swans had been given all the modern tools to play with. Bodies undulate in the front row whilst others nod, entranced, as the unrelenting drive of the band continues seamlessly from number to number, an enraptured audience under a throbbing techno spell. The stamina required is undoubtedly why most, as mentioned, stick to button pushing, but SCALPING don’t let slip in their commitment to delivering this music in a live band setting.

The constant ebb becomes so easy to get lost in that as the set draws to a close and the mutating matrix on the screen grows darker, the band have seemingly managed to live up to their name, with heads all around cleanly sliced open and into dirged bedazzlement.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Scalping