VANISHING TWIN

VANISHING TWIN/YAMA WARASHI AT KINGS PLACE, KING’S CROSS – 28/10/21

Gosh, isn’t London busy. You forget. And there are so many ‘cool’ people. I see more ‘cool’ people in five minutes here than I have in almost two months of living in Poole. And they’re so ‘cool’. ‘Cooler’ than you, probably. Certainly ‘cooler’ than me. You can see why provincial people feel so much resentment towards London. It’s because it stole all their ‘cool’ people. London acts as a black hole for ‘cool’ people. It sucks up them all up from the provinces and dresses them in strange clothes and strange opinions and then takes them to very nice places like KINGS PLACE to watch ‘cool’ bands like Vanishing Twin and Yama Warashi, and just generally shows them a good time. That London.

I have this theory – well, actually, it’s more of a passing thought – that if you mix three or more musical styles or traditions what you end up with is gently psychedelic music. I don’t know what the musical styles or traditions are, but that’s certainly true of YAMA WARASHI. I don’t catch their whole set but they certainly seem pleased with how things have gone.

VANISHING TWIN also lend credence to my 'theory'. There's no need to list the particular musical styles or traditions involved, but the results are certainly gently psychedelic. It’s like being in a huge psychedelic bouncy castle, but not one that smells of feet like the ones you used to go on when you were a child but a really nice one made out of organic rubber that smells really nice and has little rooms and towers and stuff, and which has been hand decorated by a group of aesthetes. The kind of psychedelic bouncy castle that doesn’t exist and never ever will.

  “We announced this gig in 2019,” says Cathy Lucas. “Who booked tickets in 2019?” Sitting in the front row that would certainly include me. Postponed twice, at one point I thought this gig would never happen. It seemed implausible. But here we are. In a reality that seemed implausible not so long ago. And maybe this reality will soon seem implausible again. There’s Lucas dressed, as my companion informs me, in a catsuit, which is black with white triangles. And there’s Phil MFU, nice to see him again, in a sparkly hat. And there’s the fantastic rhythm section mixing up the rhythms and the musical styles like there’s nothing else to do. “This music makes me want to get high,” I say to my companion. It’s music that makes not being high seem like a total waste of time. Very ‘cool’.