Review: Perc Album Launch, The Island

“Britain may be going through an identity crisis, but at least our greatest export – music – is sure of its place in the world. A slew of forward-facing young artists (think Stormzy, 808INK, Daniel OG) across the musical spectrum are reclaiming their roots, distancing their styles from those of their US cousins.

Since 2002, rave auteur Perc (born Ali Wells) has been proudly dispatching quintessentially British techno, converting the sonic wastes of Britain’s decaying factories into clanging musical maelstroms. Continuing an esteemed line of electronic agitators (Massive Attack, Sleaford Mods, Whitehouse), the north-London producer’s firmly at home articulating the urban anxieties and impotent rage of modern Britain.

Amid this decade’s social malaise, highlighted by financial crisis, riots and political scandal, Perc became something of an accidental hero. In 2011, his  dance-floor destructing debut, ‘Wicker and Steel’, was celebrated by cultural tastemakers like The Guardian and The Quietus for “creating the perfect mood music of the time”.

His influence even extended beyond insular media circles, as ‘London, We Have You Surrounded’ emerged on camera-phone footage of the riots. Yet, at the time, the producer brushed-off his involuntary status as spokesperson for millennial malcontents. In an interview with Resident Advisor, he declared “I don’t see a news report about a downturn in the British economy, or the 100% cut in arts funding in Newcastle, and then run to the studio to express my anger in the form of a techno track”.

By the time his difficult second album ‘The Power and the Glory’ came around in 2014, however, Perc had changed his tune. Where once he’d downplayed suggestions of political motivation, he was now comfortable putting the political elite between the crosshairs of his incendiary industrial noise. Less club bangers, more avant-garde agitprop, tracks like ‘David and George’, dedicated to the country’s then leaders, and ‘Dumpster’ were clear statements of radical intent.

On his latest album, ‘Bitter Music’, the producer reaffirms his activist attitude, following, as stated in press notes, “the extensive political change in the UK and around the world”. This time round, however, he largely sidelines the fitful, abstract drone pieces  and instead keeps a watchful eye on the dancefloor.

Could there be an apter venue for Perc to rage against the machine than a disused police station retaining many of its original features, namely the claustrophobically grubby holding cells? The main room itself, longer than it is wide, with its low ceilings and distinct lack of fresh air, is a plumb fit for the producer’s stifling, bone-rattling rampages.

Taking to his laptop without fanfare, he deploys both white-knuckled mixdowns and meticulously studied on-screen productions with workmanlike competence. But if ‘Bitter Music’ introduces a wider sonic palette to Perc’s artillery, it doesn’t come across live. Again and again, he unloads volleys of deafening mortar fire, which probably don’t challenge any fundamental  political beliefs, but nonetheless left one feeling they’d encountered an exhilarating face-off with a formidable combatant. “