Gengahr exploded onto the music scene this summer with the long awaited release of their debut LP A Dream Outside. The four piece, hailing from North London, charmed fans of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Temples in 2014 with their single ‘Fill My Gums With Blood’, in which frontman Felix Bushe’s airy falsetto takes on a creepy vampiric tone. However, it was the release of ‘She’s a Witch’ on the EP of the same name, with haunting romantic ‘Haunter’ earlier this year that really took off for the band. After touring Europe with massive names Alt-J at the start of 2015, Gengahr had a packed summer playing sets at some of the UK’s biggest festivals, including Best Kept Secret and Glastonbury. Following the release of A Dream Outside in July they played sets at Latitude and Reading & Leeds’ Festival Republic stage.
Bristol’s Exchange was day two of tour for Gengahr, and after a year of arenas and massive festival crowds the venue was refreshingly intimate. Supporting were new names Pumarosa, whose “industrial spiritual” sound and futuristic look were an eclectic start to the night. 8-minute slow burn jam ‘Priestess’, their current single, saw lead singer Isabel Munoz-Newsome channelling Ellie Rowsell and FKA Twigs with lilting intense dance moves in a gold spangled dress and black Nikes. Cash+David followed, offering a contrastingly simple monochrome, unfiltered aesthetic, but their electro-pop sound incorporated tropical techno and beach club bass elements. Liberal voice edits lent itself to the band’s overall summer-throwback feeling, with elements of Cat Power and Haim in the vocals and edgy but chilled synth and electric drums. The peak of the set was new single ‘Pains 4 U’ and single ‘Bones’ released in 2014.
After sound checks with distinct Tame Impala sensibilities, Gengahr began a dynamic set with ‘Loki’, the final track on the new EP Tired Eyes and just a few weeks old. Were you to walk past snapback-and-leather-jacket-wearing Busche in the streets of North London you wouldn’t expect the band’s trademark dreamy vocals to be coming from him, but the overarching effect given is of a humble and unpretentious personality. The band adeptly jumped between basically unheard tracks and more popular songs from the album, balancing them with old favourites ‘Powder’ and ‘Bathed in Light’, which received the most enthusiastic vocal response. Popular tunes from A Dream Outside, high energy ‘Embers’ and ‘Trampoline’ were met with animated dancing and crowd surfing from an audience of mostly local teenagers. ‘Dark Star’ from the deluxe version of the album acted as a welcome interlude between these two songs, a two minute mellow instrumental with riffs and beats throwing back to Peace’s debut album In Love. The band’s encore began with ‘Lonely as a Shark’, a melancholic yet strangely cheerful lament. The final song was, appropriately, ‘She’s a Witch’, which has consistently been Gengahr’s most popular release to date.
Though the band played a very polished set, their live sound hardly any different from recorded, the gig felt incredibly raw in the tiny grungy venue with audience members leaning on equipment at the front of the stage and feet of crowd-surfing teenagers coming dangerously close to knocking over mic stands and kicking Bushe in the face. However, the band’s down to earth members took it all in their stride, hanging around after the set to chat to the audience, taking pictures, selling their merchandise and signing shirts albums and setlists which had been ripped off the stage by fans during the energised chaos of ‘She’s a Witch’.
The Exchange has hosted the likes of The 1975 and Jungle in recent years, so for Gengahr (signed to Transgressive, the same label responsible for the likes of Foals and Two Door Cinema Club) we can only expect a swift move upwards to bigger things.
Gengahr will be returning to Bristol’s Colston Hall, supporting the Maccabees on November 28th.
Have a listen to Gengahr’s new EP Tired Eyes before then.