Review: Simple Things 2016

The Colston Hall has hosted Bob Marley, David Bowie and The Beatles but it’s never had a double bill like Death Grips and Charlotte Church before. It might just be the best thing that’s ever happened in Bristol. Both are here for the sixth outing of Simple Things festival, the annual venue-hopping marathon whose broad-minded approach to music is surely beyond question.

Our day starts at the Bristol County Sports Club. Just a few hundred yards from the Colston Hall, it’s already heaving by 2pm. She Drew The Gun – winners of this year’s Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition – are a harmonious marriage of alternative scuzz and classic pop-rock songwriting. Built around Louisa Roach’s rich vocals and fleshed out with stirring synths and psych-ish guitar, they sound like a BBC 6Music staple waiting to happen. They play Overload by Sugababes in the style of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit. We don’t know it yet, but it’s a hint of the madness to come.

The hippy vibes are strong with Cousin Kula in the Colston Hall foyer, whose eclectic but unfocused sound blends elements of pop, jazz-funk and tropicalia. Much more satisfying is the lush, Jon Hopkins-style electronica of Rival Consoles at The Station. As he summons sunshine and storms from an impressive array of hardware, it’s like watching a man spinning plates in an old style magic show.

Better still is Kayla Painter, whose set in The Lantern is one of the day’s finest. Subtly ingenious, her abstracted techno, garage and hip-hop beats are a contemporary take on classic IDM from Autechre to Future Sound of London. The mournful synth melodies are all her own though, and the two-screen visual set-up makes for some seriously engrossing 3D effects. Painter is based in Bristol and we should be proud to count her among our own.

Next up at The Station are Shobaleader One, a staggeringly skilled fusion group reworking the back catalogue of bandleader Tom Jenkinson, otherwise known as Squarepusher. With their faces disguised by LED-covered masks, the four musicians open with Cooper’s World from Jenkinson’s classic 1997 album Hard Normal Daddy. Their sheer musicianship – combined with the irresistibly funky breakneck grooves – is enough to induce wall-to-wall grins in the packed-out former fire station.

After a brief encounter with the sumptuous electro-pop of Jessy Lanza at the impressively re-tooled SWX, we bounce back to The Station. Powell‘s murderous machine music is techno with the funk and positivity bled out of it, but it’s no less powerful for that. If modern dance music had been invented by nihilistic art students from suburban England it would sound something like this, and it probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful. Powell is brutal, bloody-minded and strangely brilliant. Another true one-off is Anna Meredith in The Lantern. Backed by a small band consisting of a cellist, a drummer and a tuba player, her clever compositions draw on folk, electronica and classical music to stirring, bombastic effect. 

The queue for Nina Kraviz suggesting she could have done with a bigger venue, we enter the Old Crown Court where DJ Spinn’s Teklife crew make a compelling case for Chicago footwork as the greatest sub-genre of dance music ever invented. Drawing on a kadeidoscope of styles from modern jazz to house and hip-hop, there’s even room for an inspired mash-up of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. The wonky, infectious beats and rapidfire mixing keep the courtroom buzzing for four hours straight, and they’re still going when we come back from seeing our headliners of choice.

“This might be the last thing that ever happens at the Colston Hall,” says our friend Simon, and he’s only half joking. There’s an end of days feel as Death Grips bring their furiously convulsive blend of hip-hop, hardcore punk and electronic noise to the main house; the atmosphere being as close to that of a riot as you’re ever likely to get in this venerable cathedral of the performing arts. People are shaking each other, shouting at each other, violently pumping their fists at the trio’s inferno of blast beats, juddering electronics and psychotic yelling. While Babylon escapes from the experience without mortal injury, it’s definitely had a bit of a scare. Death Grips are anything but easy on the ear but they’re undoubtedly a band for our infuriating times. Their juxtaposition with what comes next is also truly inspired.

“Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte fucking Church,” chant the crowd in the foyer as they wait for their heroine to arrive. When she does she’s wearing a bridal gown and her group Charlotte Church’s Pop Dungeon are all turned out in wedding finery too. Despite an ominous opening salvo of Nine Inch Nail’s Closer and Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath, the majority of the set is made up of classic pop covers – Basement Jaxx, The Specials, En Vogue – including a medley of Overload and White Rabbit that’s eerily similar to the one we heard in The Sportsman’s at lunch time. A killer cover of R Kelly’s Ignition leads to a half naked rugby scrum in the middle of the crowd, and the mass singalong of I Believe I Can Fly from a crowd that’s spent the rest of the day listening to some pretty out-there sounds is nothing short of priceless. Best of all is a mash-up of Rage Against The Machine and Destiny’s Child, which works better than anyone could have imagined.

If you’re planning to get married any time soon, the Pop Dungeon from the artist formerly known as the Voice of an Angel should be your first and only choice to provide the entertainment.    

Main photo: Shobaleader One at Simple Things 2016. Photograph by Hannah Burrows.

Read more: Interview: Simple Things co-promoter Luke Sutton