News / / 25.10.13

SHANGAAN ELECTRO + HEATSICK

The Exchange, Bristol | October 23rd

For part two of their Out Of Place series of adventurously roaming events, Qu Junktions and the Arnolfini constructed a dizzyingly technicolor evening of body music.

Arriving about 10 minutes into Heatsick’s Casio-keyboard extravaganza, the main room of The Exchange is already full of an enthusiasm rarely seen on a Wednesday night. Steven Warwick is in the midst of bashing out one of his psychedelic house constructions with an endearing sloppiness that is sadly missing from his recorded output. It should also be noted that he’s sporting an excellent bootlegged Chanel / Climate Change T-shirt. A creeping awareness that you’ve been listening to the same loop for an age begins to set in after a while, and it’s around this point that he’ll drop everything out and start again. It’s his skill with melody that is most impressive though; the way in which they all pile atop each other without ever coming to blows is something very few people manage to achieve, and in this respect Heatsick comes on like a Fisher Price Omar-S.

There’s no denying Heatsick’s sound fits snugly with that of Shangaan Electro; it has that same naive, relentlessly syncopating quality. But when the dancers / singers take to the stage and Nozinja – creator of the Shangaan Electro phenomenon and tour DJ – plays the first track, the shock of a 70bpm jump in tempo is palpable. If the thought of listening to dance music at 189bpm fills you with a nameless dread normally reserved for accidentally walking into the gabber room at a rave, the HI-NRG A/V explosion of joy that is The Shangaan Electro Show will quickly abate your fears.

The enthusiasm of the individuals onstage eclipses that of the already buzzing crowd, and from that point on we’re in it together for an hour or so of relentless motion and colour. Limbs flail as if suspended from above and the smiles are real and permanent. It’s so removed from our culture in every way that it would be easy to write it off as an imported spectacle for Western eyes and ears, but the sincerity from audience and participant alike ensure it’s one of the most joyous sights this town has ever witnessed.

 

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qujunktions.com

Words + Photo: Steve Dores

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