Crack

It's almost impossible not to grin, in a rather manic way, while The Pyramids are playing live. This gnarled avant-garde jazz quintet, kitted out in wacky, multi-coloured and shiny outfits, are well-practiced performers. They snake, instruments in hand, through the audience, infecting them with their good vibes, peace and love, and suddenly the viewer becomes an important part of the musical monster, purring and prancing in sync, en masse.

Cafe Oto, one of Dalston's hottest spots, was lucky enough to welcome the five-piece space jazz group for a two-night 'deeply spiritual Afro psychedelic music' residency in mid-January. They are from Ohio, America, but they dress and play music which is extraterrestrial; it's as though they have been beamed down from Venus, the planet of love and happiness.

Back on Planet Earth, in the early 1970s saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margo Simmons and bassist Kimathi Asante - all heavily involved in the radical artistic hotbed of Ohio's Antioch College - decided to flunk and fly off around the world on a cultural odyssey. It was a fantastical quest which took in Amsterdam and Paris - where the band's name was determined, and designed to evoke symbolic monuments of African and Egyptian culture - and through Africa, where they studied and played with Alhassan Ibrahim and the King's drummers of Tamale, Ghana, as well as Kenya's Masai and Kikuyu tribes.

This was one of their first European gigs since re-forming after a 35-year break; "We were way ahead of our time, so we decided to let time catch up," joked Ackamoor, in his all-in-one shimmering gold Lycra suit. BBC Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson, who thrives on world music, did much to resuscitate the group last year and invited them to star at his Worldwide Festival in Sete, located on the southern coast of France. He described the Pyramids as the best gig he saw in 2011, and the musical trend-setter was present in the cavernous Cafe Oto, hidden at the back of the room.

Engrossing and magical, it is easy to see why Peterson rates the jazz band so highly. Here they ad libbed, interacted playfully with the spellbound crowd, and offered solutions to the world's woes. "What the world needs now, is peace, love and happiness," they sang to begin Time Capsule. The gig was peppered with virtuoso performances, some may say indulgent, yet wholly satisfying to a live audience. They plugged their new album, Otherworldly, and while it is an interesting, if at times difficult listen, this group in the flesh are on another planet.

As one of the lucky audience members, you want to bottle up and keep the energy and spirituality The Pyramids create. Who knows how long they will keep going this time? Hop aboard the spacecraft while you can.



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Words: Oliver Pickup