Gig review: Ex-Easter Island Head at Hebden Bridge Trades Club

It’s only reasonable to assume that by this point in the history of electrified music, all possible permutations of the classic rock ’n’ roll line-up of two guitars, bass and drums have been thoroughly examined, if not totally exhausted.

Ex-Easter Island Head beg to differ.

One of the many delights of tonight’s superlative performance is trying to guess how the experimental Liverpool four-piece operating in Kraftwerk man-machine formation in the atmospheric near-darkness of the Trades Club stage evolved from the conventional handling of their chosen instruments to the group’s current, profoundly unorthodox presentation.

Most of the sounds heard tonight derive from two electric guitars and a bass, but the instruments are secured face-up to racks and manipulated with mallets, sticks, bows and, most curiously, a rotating device that looks like a miniature fan and create a steadily buzzing, gamelan-style drone when in contact with the strings.

There are no chords, strumming, picking, solos or other typical ways to tease sound out of guitars: instead, the instruments are utilised as a cross between improvised keyboards and unconventional percussion.

Actual percussion takes up another prominent role on the group’s palette. at one point three of the musicians handle a complex drum pattern in piecemeal style: one person splashes cymbals, another one pummels a bass drum, and the third batters what resembles tom-toms, each doing so whilst simultaneously managing their main instrumental duties with their free hand.

At times the combined sound emerging from the four musicians’ seemingly minuscule contributions is so richly textured that you’d suspect backing tapes were involved. However, apart from some nature sounds that would be difficult to recreate in the darkly lit confines of the Trades Club (alongside the music, tonight’s lighting also leans towards dramatic minimalism), everything is totally live: when vocal samples pop up, these are recorded by the band on stage first as part of the same composition’s introduction.

None of this boundary-pushing would make much difference if the actual music didn’t offer much beyond a dry academic exercise in cerebral obscurity. Happily, the group’s new album Norther (performed in its entirety as tonight’s main set) proves that daring out-there experimentation can coexist happily with genuine substance and emotional resonance. Live, the seamless merging of avant-garde instincts and accessible outcomes is even more compelling.

From rhythmically robust relentless forward-momentum (the motorik pulses of Norther) to slow-burning minimalism, Ex-Easter Island Head turn their self-administered constraints and eccentricities very much to their advantage, with the live performance allowing the material to stretch out as much as possible in a carefully choreographed context where excess improvisation could lead to intricate musical constructs to tumble like a house of cards.

The main set closing Lodestone is particularly mesmerising: the four musicians sustain a mournful melody with little more than the tinkling of four differently tuned bells, applied in a theatrical style that suggests a slow-motion ritualistic dance.