Back in the pot, patchouli and paisley haze of 1960's London, one master Syd Barrett made a discovery that would alter his musical vision in a quite revolutionary way: a nosy rummage through his landlord’s loft uncovered a mass of exotic musical instruments that pushed the sound of the first Pink Floyd album away from psychedelic R’n’B towards the bizarre, other-worldly jams that mark ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ out as the blueprint for every experimental rock album that has followed in its wake. Syd also discovered LSD – in fact he discovered it a bit too much, leaving many of us wondering to what strange places he might have taken us if he hadn’t lost the plot quite so dramatically. His is a dropped baton that scouse collective Super Numeri intend to pick up. Assembled from the ranks of the current Liverpool scene (Snap Ant, Pop Levi and Loka’s Karl Webb all chip in here), Super Numeri continue their experiments in ambience and abstract rock onto their second album ‘The Welcome Table’. The plucked harp intro of opener ‘The First League Of Angels’ is what the theme music to ‘Bagpuss’ must sound like on acid as it gives way to solid, striding avant-funk for 24 minutes (including a spooky 6 minute Floydian breakdown). ‘The Chart’ is smelted from the same space R’n’B ore, with washes of synths orbiting the disciplined, looping drums. Drum and bass touches are applied on ‘The Spies Of St. Ives’; a Photek-like rush of breaks and a discordant jazz guitar that evolves into a neo-latin dub groove - a bit like ‘Sticky Fingers’-era Stones having a skunk-addled jam with Portishead. Yes, as wonderful as that.
One thing that Super Numeri are keen to avoid is any accusations of self-indulgence and, when the word ‘experimentation’ is associated with a band, suspicions of prog abandon are naturally aroused. Fortunately, there isn’t a ten minute guitar solo in sight, but these drawn-out jams certainly benefit from being listened to when in a certain ‘mood’. The cyclical, layered discordance of the title track, for example, would sound more at place in a chill-out room than in even the most broad-minded of alternative nights.
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