Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

The release of nature morte, which surpassed even the shattering power of Vital, made the return of Montral’s Big|Brave to Leeds an absolute must-see show. The addition of B E L K to the lineup as the local support only added to the buzz.

Since finding a home on one of my favourite labels in the UK, Human Worth, B E L K have absolutely not sold out or become slicker, maintaining the raw energy that they displayed the first time I caught them at Wharf Chambers alongside USA Nails, Blacklisters, and the sadly-missed Cannibal Animal back in November 2021.

B E L K

The sound is dominated by brutal bowel-shaking bass: perversely, it’s not a criticism when I say it sounds like arse in a gloriously messy way – because it’s precisely how it’s supposed to sound. It’s sometimes hard to tell if they’re in time or in tune amidst the chaotic racket, it’s a snarling, grating shouty racket. When they slow it down, it’s a grinding trudge in the Godflesh vein, while the rest is full-throttle gnarly grindcore, short sharp sub-two minute assaults. Everything creaks, crackles and feeds back. The vocals are almost buried in a mudslide of noise and everything sounds as fucked as the drummer’s cymbal.

Historically, I’ve researched support acts in advance, but more recently, I’ve been more open to the element of surprise, and this has yielded some unexpected revelations, Aicher is one of them. Recorded, I suspect I would have found his dark ambient sound sculptures appealing, but, well, y’know. There’s a fair bit of it around. This means I was taken unawares by the immense power of this set, both in terms of performance and physical power. Instead of the tentative starts common to sets in this field, Aicher is bold, and loud, waving what I assume to be a contact mic to create sounds that echo and explode. He plays in near darkness, enhancing the atmosphere, picking up a bass guitar which yields sounds as strange as it looks. There are thunderous crashes of noise. He unplugs the guitar and plays jack plug against the strings and pickups, and later scrapes guitar neck against the edge of the stage. It’s a mesmerising performance: he seems comfortable lurching around in the shadows, cranking out a billows of sound with lots of low end vibrations which hit a throbbing sweet spot. Over a sustained period, the ear pressure builds and the effect is like swimming…. Then from amidst the odd synthetic beats, the volume rises again. He picks up the bass once again and it doesn’t rumble but it roars, and we’re all rooted to the spot, stunned into silence.

Aicher

The weird bass is back when Big | Brave take to the stage, and we subsequently learn that Aicher – or Liam Andrews as he’s also known. He’s a great fit, adding another layer of depth to the powerhouse drone riff howl that is Big | Brave. On record, they’re immense, but live… it’s hard to convey just how gripping they are, how immersive and all-encompassing the sound. Of the many shows I saw in 2022, theirs here at the Brudenell is a big standout. Sometimes you wonder if a show was really as good as you remember, if it was just the atmosphere, the beer, or whatever. But no, seeing them again hits just as hard: this is a band with a rare intensity – and they play at a punishing volume with a lot of it coming from their towering backline. They’re not quite in Sunn O))) or Dinosaur Jr territory, but for a smaller band, they really do lug some big kit, with three monster stacks all above their own head height dominating the stage.

Big|Brave

And while they have space, the original three play close together in the centre of the stage, and you can see the subtle interactions between them – although the intuitive interplay is the real joy to behold. They are each lost in their own spaces, and we are all lost in those spaces with them. Each player brings something quite different, and it’s almost unfathomable that they should cohere in such a way. Robin Wattie is understated, her shrieking, desperate vocals half-buried beneath her own guitar and that of Mathieu Ball, who’s restless all over, nonstop, while the drumming – slow, hard, methodical, often with both stick striking the same drum at once and hammering an ultra -low BPM akin to Swans circa Greed –goes straight through you.

The lighting is as stark and minimal as the music, with two spots facing the audience providing the primary illumination.

Big|Brave

It’s hard to fathom that regular instruments – albeit with a metal bass – can make this noise and they have pretty compact pedal boards considering. The sustain!!! Ball and Andrews grind their headstocks into their amps and shake, twist and bend the becks of their instruments to yield maximum sustain and twisted feedback as minutes pass between chords, and it’s truly something to behold.

Big|Brave

There is no interaction during the set, which is built around nature morte in sequence, to have done so would have torn the atmosphere. And when Wattie does speak, she’s timid, grateful, and against the conventions of expectation, it’s not to thank us and announce an encore, but to thank us and leave.

There is a purity about Big|Brave which is rare: it’s clear that the way they play is not about showmanship but because this is what they feel, but to see a band wring every drop of a note from an instrument while rattling your ribcage is a special experience.

Big|Brave are outstanding in every way: emotive, monolithic, but about so much more than noise. They just keep getting better… and better. And this… this is something else. And it’s special. But fuck it hurts. Live music doesn’t get better than this.