Viv Albertine drops round to our lovely Berlin summer for an intimate evening at Monarch. A cheap as chips gig for legendary The Slits guitarist and main songwriter, this sounds like a steal to me, we’d be foolish not to.
As The Slits broke new ground in the late 70s London punk scene without anyone noticing how original they were, the horribly misplaced feminist label was attached to them. The male-dominated music world sung the praises of The Sex Pistols et al and while those classic punk bands were boring crowds the planet over The Slits incorporated reggae, dub and african rhythms into a totally original sound before breaking up in 1981 shortly after releasing their now classic second album Return Of The Giant Slits. Albertine withdrew from musical life and became a film maker and mother and for the past two years has re-ignited her career as a solo artist with an EP released on Ecstatic Peace, and they don’t release just anyone if you know what I’m sayin.
Of her new recordings has been written:
A combination of skewed guitar noises, wonky studio effects and bittersweet mantras and tunes, it speaks of unfulfilled yearnings, sexual frustrations and disillusionment in the whole ideal of romance. Other tracks on the web, such as ‘Confessions of a MILF’, a condemnation of the confinements of marriage and motherhood, are equally convincing and reveal again that three decades later Viv Albertine has lost none of her ability for spiky wit or ear for twisted melody.
Sounding a little like a sugar sweet slightly mystically cosmic Genesis P. Orridge via a naughty Syd Barrett, sounding all bright and breezy and kind of psychedelic in that post-punk way of things.
Show starts at 9.30pm on the dot.
