Tongue-tied and humbled by a vision of rare beauty, James Berry eventually probes beyond the restless demeanour (and tits) of Leila Moss to observe eight-rumbling thwacks of something almost as pleasing.
09/02/2005
There she stands then, dead centre stage, cutting tall outstretched figures with her curiously bendy frame, ever-restless demeanour, ray-gun stare, and most importantly that crystal voice. Leila Moss is a quite remarkable front-woman, immediately stealing the attention of a thousand wandering eyes leaves little doubt of that. But it’s a role she plays very straight, there is no gimmick, no special feature, no presumptuous play on her sexuality even. She’s as much a proportional part of the band that she ultimately stands clear from as the next tousle-haired boy. But she radiates – precision, dominance, belief, passion– and lays claim to a husky-bodied voice that could neatly slice glass. Like PJ Harvey with Nina Persson’s crisp limits. And how does that slide into the background, even if it wanted to?
Thus her presence forces the pedestal that carries her slightly out of focus, in which case what a beautiful mesh that is rebounding around Koko’s excessively ornate interior. Guitars claw at each others straggly ends, surges of sound are ridden like waves and the rhythm behaves according to the scriptures penned by Mo Tucker, namely that life doesn’t need to move any more intensely than it damn pleases, and that power relies on control. Current single ‘Lion Rip’ is a rare moment when the tempo actually hits the roof, though deceivingly it doesn’t feel that others don’t. It’s a caustic modern update of the Velvet Underground’s free-moving, dreamy expression.
Intriguingly, the capacity audience are a little slow on the uptake, but tonight’s gig is part of A Certain Music Magazine’s annual awards barrage, and on top of just previously having endured a band (Dogs, if we must name them) so post-Razorlight that McFly would be able to heckle and maintain the moral high-ground, it’s hard to work out where The Duke Spirit fit into the grand scheme. As far as contemporaries go there are Six By Seven, Spiritualized, the Kills at a push, but they’re essentially out on their own, unable to be conveniently sectioned. Still, they give everyone a warning with 8 rumbling thwacks of the floor tom at the beginning of ‘Cuts Across The Land’, which is only sporting, before setting about dismantling preconceptions with smoking verve and unfaltering self-belief till there is no more convincing to be done.
Relevant sites:
http://www.dukespirit.com/
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2004©