- The Jazz Café might be one of London's most iconic venues, but few would say it's their first port of call for fresh electronic music. This could be about to change. The Camden spot was recently bought by The Columbo Group, the company behind XOYO and Phonox. As well as a £3 million revamp, which included a new D&B soundsystem and a sleeker layout, the venue has modernised its booking policy, with a strong lean towards electronic acts. (Pantha Du Prince, Moritz Von Oswald and Andrew Weatherall all played within the first month of reopening.) On Friday, August 12th, I went down to see Harvey Sutherland perform as part of The Bermuda Trio.
I have an issue with a lot of electronic live acts: unless you're a gearhead yourself, it's hard to know exactly what an artist is doing behind their machines. How much is prerecorded? How much is performed live? I'd rather the music was presented in a way that makes sense visually, like a band. Being able to trace the elements of the music you love to their source is a simple thrill that shouldn't be underestimated.
Sutherland, real name Mike Katz, offers exactly that. Rising through Melbourne's fertile music scene as a session player, he took the instrumentalist's route into dance music. Though his sound is more sleazy disco than modern house, he quickly gained attention from labels like Voyage and Motor City Drum Ensemble's MCDE. When he appeared onstage at The Jazz Café, armed with a Rhodes and a Roland keyboard, he brought the pleasure of live performance to a club crowd.
Katz wasn't playing alone. This was the UK debut of The Bermuda Trio, with Katz joined by Tamil Rogeon on electric strings and Graeme Pogson on drums. Each of them looked deeply in the zone from the first glistening arpeggio, flowing and flexing in time with the music as if they were playing their instruments with their whole bodies. Though the set wasn't completely improvised, you got the sense that they could switch up the direction at any moment.
Musically, The Bermuda Trio seemed to surprise even themselves, making supple transitions between velvety funk and cosmic disco jams while bathed in the intimate purple and blue light of the venue. There was even a tunnelling acid bassline to accompany one of Rogeon's emotional violin solos. They blazed through a mix of new and old material, including the low-slung "New Paradise" and the sprightly modern funk of encore "Bamboo." The highlight, though, was "Bermuda." The track's memorable opening riff was transposed to strings, building to a grand crescendo of beautiful harmonies. It left a particularly strong mark on the night's host, Rhythm Section's Bradley Zero, who looked lost for words when he jumped onstage to thank the band.