R.S.A.G.

The following is taken from "The Art of Noise" review of the gig at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, (26 Oct 2007), With Max Tundra. I guess the precedent of Rarely Seen Above Ground's stage set-up is those arena shows where Elvis' old band knock out the cobwebbed chops, while the spectral King phones it in from the big screen. Well, almost, if instead you had the band on screen, and Elvis on the stage, with Elvis singing from behind a drum set, and with a David Byrne kinda cadence. That'd be the precedent.

I guess the precedent of Rarely Seen Above Ground's stage set-up is those arena shows where Elvis' old band knock out the cobwebbed chops, while the spectral King phones it in from the big screen. Well, almost, if instead you had the band on screen, and Elvis on the stage, with Elvis singing from behind a drum set, and with a David Byrne kinda cadence. That'd be the precedent. Well, no, you'd also need the band on screen to be decked out not in faded crushed velvet or weary leather, but in fur-lined playground hoods, and in noir-ish yet psychedelic black and white, and you'd have to suspect that all of them were Elvis, filmed from a variety of angles.

Thinking about it now, I've painted a bit of a nightmarish vision there, so let's take the sideburns and jumpsuits out of it, and just place in an unassuming Kilkenny sticksman in t-shirt and jeans. The hoods remain the same. That, you might think is the hook of Rarely Seen Above Ground, a.k.a. Jeremy Hickey, the fact that rather than just sing and crash away to a backing tape, he has a projection of the ?band' (as ?twere) going throughout. Not just a half-arsed four-bodies-in-silhouette black and white image either. Instead, it's done like a music video, albeit a particularly enigmatic one, with cuts, angles, swoops and production effects.

However, it is ultimately the distraction to the main event, and that is Hickey himself to the left of the screen, with his dexterous, inventive, gleeful drumming, and the strangled soul of his voice. It is a kind of distant, hollow vibrato that appears as though to be coming through the walls from two rooms over, but yet at the same time sharp and arresting.