Thursday 31/08/06 Tapes ‘n Tapes, Hot Club de Paris, To My Boy @ Korova, Liverpool

We can’t move.  We can see very little.  We are unspeakably hot.  Empty glasses crunch underfoot, people elbow their way through us, beer soaks into the canvas of our trainers.  These, ladies and gentlemen, are the things we endure in the hope that we are about to bear witness to something quite spectacular.  Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s worth the effort.

Tonight is one those nights when expectancy doesn’t so much buzz about you as bludgeon the senses.  To My Boy and Hot Club de Paris are no strangers to Liverpool stages, but their recently elevated national profile means that Korova’s tiny basement is crammed with curious ears long before the brothers Tapes emerge.  XL’s latest signings (well offshoot Abeano) To My Boy are everything we want them to be: OMD strapped on to Helen Love (see single ‘I Am X-Ray’), Clor’s tearaway little brothers on ‘The Grid’ and the real-life Lost Boys with a theatrical flair everywhere else. "Utterly thrilling", they sing.  We agree.

And so from Casio operatics we head to the dizzyingly colourful world of Hot Club de Paris.  On the brink of releasing debut long player ‘Drop It Till It Pops’, HCdP find themselves playing to the biggest crowd of the night as new listeners squeeze alongside their hometown regulars.  Kicking off with their customary accapella welcome, HCdP rush headlong into recent single ‘Sometimesitsbetter… ’, clattering gloriously out at the other end.  Elements of American hardcore and power pop battle with tight harmonies and melodic savvy, none more so than on forthcoming single ‘Everyeveryeverything… ’ (not keen on the old space bar, these fellas).  Manic to the point of collapse and springier than one of Leo Sayer’s pubes, HCdP do nothing to lower the heat in the room.  Even the people who talk right the way through the songs seem to love them.

Strangely, the crowd starts to dwindle a little once Tapes ‘n Tapes arrive.  The retreat is probably more to do with the heat and the realisation that relative acres of space are available at the back, but nevertheless, for the still-considerable pile up at the front, it gets a little easier to breath.  "We’re turning Liverpool into a tropical jungle!" jokes singer Josh Grier as the crowd sweat to the Latin-tinged chord shifts of ‘The Iliad’, and he’s not wrong.  Strange, though, how music imbued with a certain magic can transport you from such earthly concerns.  ‘Just Drums’ pounds terrifyingly away as it sucks us into the heart of darkness, hollered with an almost Beefheart-like intensity that was never allowed to surface on their ‘The Loon’ album.  ‘In Houston’ takes on a similarly harsh, darker edge while the jaw-dropping collision of Walkmen-inspired alt.balladry and Bunnymen-esque drama that is ‘Manitoba’ becomes ten times the sum of its parts and leaves us genuinely in awe and ringing of ear.

Of course, Tapes ‘n Tapes don’t just deal in semi-gothic majesty and warped blues – the Minneapolis quartet also peddle a fine line in pop wizardry, and it's for this that at least one giddy member of the audience has come tonight.  Cue the mini-rushing of the stage for the nagging polka of ‘Insistor’ – perhaps the most aptronymic song of the year – and the slyly imbedded hooks of stomping new 7” ‘Cowbell’.  It’s the hallmark of many a great band – the ability to harness an off-kilter, dark vision to radio-friendly melodies to create a singular, perversely poppy assault on the fringes of the mainstream.  Tapes ‘n Tapes, with their DIY roots and stripped down productions, are now being described as the saviours of indie.  That title might yet fail to do them justice.