Cornershop, the British-Indian quintet that has been tickling connoisseurs of blissed-out neo-psychedelic pop for five years, provided only a brief glimpse of their trance-Atlantic magic Tuesday at Metro.
After a mere 30 minutes of what had been projected to be an hour-plus opening set as co-headliner with Gus Gus, Cornershop abruptly left the stage. A Metro publicist said Cornershop leader Tjinder Singh had been feeling ill, but Singh’s sudden departure looked to be more directly related to ill will. Frustrated by a balky microphone, Singh hurled his guitar and stomped off, leaving the remaining four band members to finish the song and the set.
Till that point, Cornershop developed polyrhythmic grooves beneath Singh’s melodies, which blended folk-rock’s lilt and hip-hop’s flow and phrasing. Nick Simms provided a funky foundation on the trap kit, abetted by Peter Bengry’s armada of tablas, wind chimes and assorted percussion knick-knacks. Ben Ayres sat cross-legged and struck tiny bells, swished tambourines and plucked a long-necked guitar. While Singh sang in English or Bengali, or sometimes not at all, Anthony Saffery embellished the melodies with astral keyboard textures and sitar drones.
Melodic hooks were constructed out of odd bits of sampled flute, a whistle, an innocuous or even seemingly nonsensical phrase–“Brimful of Asha” or “Sleep on the left side/Leave the right side free.” It was pop that recombined influences with unassuming dexterity, that used syllables and words as much for how they sounded as for what they actually meant.
But Cornershop never developed any momentum and what lingered was the selfish behavior of their leader rather than the delicious audacity of their sound.
Gus Gus, an eight-member collective of deejays, filmmakers and musicians, suggested a ’90s version of their quirky Icelandic predecessors the Sugarcubes. With their blurry video images and somewhat trite slogans paraded on a white backdrop, group members pressed buttons on their machines and gyrated in darkness save for an onslaught of strobe lights.
A trio of singers emoted over the smudged blips of synthetic sound and high-hat rhythms, and gave sonic structure and visual focus to what was otherwise a pedestrian rave soundtrack: a smorgasbord of dance counterculture currency, including trip-hop, house, techno and jungle.
But after Cornershop’s slight, it was difficult to resist the group’s obvious enthusiasm for its material. A shirtless deejay gyrated alongside a wiggling halter-topped singer. “I let myself slide into unreality,” the screen type proclaimed. That was supposed to have been Cornershop’s job, but on a night of dashed expectations, Gus Gus would have to do.
