LIVE REVIEW: Water Damage, Geologist, Bong II @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle (09.11.26)

Image: Water Damage by Lee Fisher

It’s incredibly gratifying to see the Lubber Fiend so rammed on a cold Monday night, but then tonight’s line-up is pretty stellar and there was a massive buzz about Water Damage’s last visit.

First up were Bong II, a last minute but very welcome addition. It’s been nine months since I saw them at their comeback gig and they’ve progressed beautifully. Across two 20-minute-ish tracks, they produced something uplifting and cathartic, heavy but never oppressive or confronting or any of that other shit that blights too much similar music. Dawn moves gracefully, full of finesse and an intense physical connection; Mike rarely looks up from his kit, fully focussed; Daniel off to one side, unassuming even as he wrenches incredible sounds from his guitar. This is devotional, stately, overwhelming. It climaxes with a wave of intense noise and leaves people a little slack-jawed.

I have to admit the little I heard of Animal Collective irritated me to a ridiculous degree so I’d ignored Geologist’s solo work. This was probably a mistake because tonight’s set was kinda fun. Working off a tabletop of kit (samples, drum loops and the rest), Geologist/Brian summoned some remarkable, unlikely noises from a kit-built hurdy gurdy that looked a bit wonky and sounded even wonkier. At times it resembled Coil if they’d swapped the DMT for some truckers’ speed, a series of demented ragas and reels, one of which seemed to lift the rhythm from Kelis’ Milkshake. I have to admit the appeal waned a little towards the end – the sound on the recent Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights? Album had more variety – but it was still enjoyable overall.

Headliners Water Damage are just remarkable, one of the greatest live bands we’ve got right now. An ever-shifting line-up built around a core of Austin-based musicians (including human dynamo Thor Harris), tonight’s nine-strong assembly includes Geologist and the legend that is Ajay Saggar. There are two drummers, a bassist, three guitarists, a hurdy gurdy, a violin and some other Heath-Robinson gadget, working together to give us, according to their own maxim, ‘Maximal Repetition Minimal Deviation’. This manifests as a fully improvised set built from heartbeat – almost tribal – drums and bass, providing a solid structure around which the other musicians improvise. The stage is so rammed that Thor is forced onto the floor in front, sawing at his violin and acting as something of a hype-man. There’s an awesome, ritualistic, almost magickal power to what Water Damage do, something intense but liberating, deeply immersed in drone and repetition, sometimes coming off like the best bits of Swans – i.e. the pummelling transcendence of the music, shorn of the iffy Nietzschean trappings. Water Damage draw on some of the best musical traditions – from free jazz to noise rock to doom – and render them beautiful and unifying and utterly immersive. They distort time to such a degree that barely moments after the ritual starts, it’s been 45 minutes and it’s all over and everyone exhales.