Factory Floor
Oval Space, London | 15 May
Nearing the closure of Factory Floor’s set at Oval Space, the crowd appear traumatised. Faceless dancers struggle to cosign with Nik Colk Void’s dissonant Fender thwacks and Gabriel Gurnsey’s drum clobbering. It’s anomalous; like listening to heavily-sampled white noise. And somehow, besieged by the post-industrial blaring, the sounds of their self-titled record emerge and then disappear. It’s as mechanised as the venue’s iron gas holder backdrop.
Factory Floor’s reputation as an exceptional live band stems from their inability to repeat anything twice. Their recordings become blueprints for something altogether weightier. It churns the stomach and nukes the ears. Turn It Up ends in an unabated ramble of drums and synth. Recent single, How You Say is observably clamorous. Dominic Butler’s control over his computers appears as rambunctious as it is disciplined. He hardly moves throughout the group’s deceptively lengthy set. Instead, Butler seemingly refuses to relieve his hands from the arranged wires and automated contraptions. He, alongside Void and Gurnsey are absolute in their individual contributions.
Oval Space’s 800 square-meter warehouse loft plays as the short-lived address to Factory Floor’s followers. Preceding their appearance, a shatteringly concise warmup from Perc tickles the timidity out of the venue’s quiet lingerers. His techno brutalism is bullish and dynamic while sounding ostensibly vintage. A set reaching a state of the subliminal only to be diffused and reanimated by what is to follow.
At times during Factory Floor’s act, you find yourself piercing through the noise to see three unassuming individuals onstage. Void’s powerfully composed persona is almost terrifying as she moans her lyrics in an near-indiscernible language. She chastises her guitar with a tattered drumstick in an attempt to hold ownership of the noise combing around her low-fringed bob. Fluorescent polemic graphics shroud the trio like day-glo camouflage. Tracks including Two Different Ways seem only slightly there; lost in the chromatic discord.
The speakers lull, Factory Floor offer a pithy wave of appreciation and the crowd ease back into the space. They almost seem taken advantage of. Factory Floor’s zoned-out-techno-beating has physically debunked a sold-out room. Hundreds leave barely conscious. It’s a particularly lethal power for such reserved musicians to possess. But Factory Floor appear to be fully equipped to govern their own chaos. And as their venues become more elaborate, more expansive, more idiosyncratic, the band are proving to find newfangled ways to pervert and reform the idea of live electronic music. It’s organised anarchy performed by silent deviates.
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Words: Tom Watson
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