This was the first of two sold out shows at the beginning of Martin Rev's current UK tour and had sold well enough that Cafe Oto removed almost all of the tables and chairs to make more space for the crowd which was good as he really doesn't make music to sit and listen to live.
First on was Neil Campbell who played a table of effects and a smart phone and a Theremin and samplers played through two amplifiers set up at the back of the dance floor and the two front of house speakers so that he had Quadrophonic sound and that so wherever you stood it sounded different.
Neil walked round the club three times explaining that he was going to perform a piece made up of found sounds he'd recorded while walking to and from his work along some canals before he started to unleash the noise on us with squalling weather sounds coming from the amps making it sound like we were in the middle of an all mighty storm being battered by screeching feedback and an orchestra of motorbikes as he attacked his theremin with a torch to mould the birdsong samples that I heard being argued over afterwards was that a snape or a heron, I heard the seagulls and pigeons among the clanging noise, but was that really a lark under all that reverb not sure but 25 minutes of this piece was just about enough to bring us into a textural and aural cacophony of unceasing noise along the canals while you are seeking a bit of peace and quiet and contemplation.
After the break it was time for the total legend that is Mr Martin Rev pretty much the original Synth terrorist to maul our ears while making sure to keep things so funky you can't help but move and dance to the music.
In his normal way most of the tunes had a basic sample or breakbeat that Martin then goes off on from those breaks were so funky right from the start and good part of the audience started to groove as he then layered on the noise from his keyboards that he very much plays in the style of Slim Gaillard hitting the keys with both sides of his fingers, his knuckles and elbows, some palm work wrists and often playing mainly with his right hand while singing.
The first obvious break he stole was the main break that Mark Ronson is currently being sued over from uptown funk only Martin lets us get grooving to it and then splatters it with noise and distortion so it's like a nightmare horror disco you're at. That was followed by a tune that re-worked Suicide's Shadazz into a nose bleed techno noise fest as Martin intones the vocals as dispassionately as possible it worked brilliantly very atmospheric.
That led into a sort of salsa funk noise piece that worked far better than it should of done. He played a sort of quieter number about 2076 that seemed to bring the madness under control before just blasting us off into the future with him.
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Then he damn near set fire to Cafe Oto when he hit the sample button that stuck the central break of Disco Inferno on that he then built layer of burning bombshells of noise and cascading walls of notes fired from his keyboards it was brilliant.
He then did a song that seemed to be about losing his dad and had a bit of a sad sound in what I could make out of the lyrics which is never easy when they get lost in the wall of noise that collapsed so we could have a nice plaintive version of Surrender that only descended into a maul of noise at its climax.
Martin seemed to be having a good time as he fired off another monster sample for us to grove too and for him to up the discordance between the on the money funky break and his reworking of it into something completely other that turned out to be a brilliant version of Kansas City!! But he was still ready to distil his dreams both musical and lyrical to us at full pelt it wasn't quite dream baby dream but more like a cousin of it that followed.
He finished his set with one more monster break this time the one from Wooly Bully that had colossal walls of sound added to it as Martin went all out and even ventured down the keyboard towards the underused right hand end of the keys before taking a couple of bows at the wave of love and cheers coming his way before lifting his wrap round shades long enough so he can see how to leave the stage and he ambled off.
He came back after a few minutes of applause to start the encore with the We Are Family break taken to a completely new dimension of noise and whatever Martins lyrics were about it wasn't family. He then played another couple of monster slabs of noise and just the hardest funk breaks going before closing with what could have been Baby Oh Baby that seemed to sum up another great set from Martin Rev who as ever is well worth going to see as no one sounds like he does.
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