It’s criminal that the first thing that springs to mind on mention of a ‘Bristol sound’ is trip-hop and nice trousers. Running parallel to all of that lifestyle fluff, there’s a much more musically ambitious and uncompromised strain of sound-as-thought that’s been secretly beating since the early-’90s.
[a]Movietone[/a], based round the axis of Kate Wright and Rachel Brook, are at the centre of this intensely creative community. They were birthed in the fallout from the mysterious Linda’s Strange Vacation, the original Bristol garage band whose eventual implosion also resulted in Dave Pierce forming Flying Saucer Attack and Matt Elliott setting up as The Third Eye Foundation.
[a]Movietone[/a] have come a long way from their initial nascent explorations into abstract sound and smashed glass aesthetics. Tonight, beefed up by a guitarist and drummer from fellow Bristolians Crescent, they draw heavily from their excellent forthcoming Domino LP, ‘The Blossom Filled Streets’. Their new songs are more heart-aimed and direct; Kate Wright‘s vocals now unashamedly tackling the meat and gristle of human existence head on. It’s simultaneously uplifting and unbearably poignant.
They end with the title track from their new LP. Beneath crystalline guitar and tumbling piano, Wright speed-reads a paean to lives tossed by the wind, beneath skies filled with petals. [a]Movietone[/a] have arrived at last. Next year surely belongs to them.