AIRCOOLED + OLLO – GREEN DOOR STORE, BRIGHTON 17.11.24
Aircooled are an East Sussex based supergroup for those that are in the know! The outfit consists of Justin Welch (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Elastica, Piroshka) on drums; Katharine Wallinger (The Wedding Present) on bass; artist and former member of Elastica ‘Mew’ on Korg synth; Oliver Cherer (of Bexhill’s ‘Music’s Not Dead’ record shop) on vocals and guitar; and Riz Maslen on vocals, keyboards and flute. It’s fair to state that they are purveyors of guitar tainted machine rock! Thus far they have primarily released a couple to top quality albums, both of which proudly sit in my record collection – These being 2022’s ‘St Leopards’ and this year’s ‘Eat The Gold’.
My debut encounter with Aircooled came last summer when they appeared on the bill of the excellent ‘Seaview Festival’ which took place on the lawns of the iconic De La Warr Pavilion on 8th July. A follow up encounter came at the ‘Lewes Psychedelic Festival’ which took place in the All Saints Centre on 27th January. They were most enjoyable at the ‘Seaview Festival’, but they totally blew me away at the ‘Lewes Psych Fest’ and as a result I had to see them perform live at the earliest opportunity. This being for their special album launch show on Valentine’s Day in the foyer of the De La Warr Pavilion. This is the site of ‘Music’s Not Dead’ record label, which sits below the iconic spiral staircase. Three days later they were in Brighton for sold out matinee and evening shows at The Prince Albert.
Tonight is night 3 of a select 7 date UK tour, which thus far has taken in Bristol and Hackney and after tonight the quintet will be heading off to Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle and Hebden Bridge. Aircooled’s next Sussex concert will be a one-off gig at The Piper in St. Leonards-on-Sea on Sunday 22nd December. Ticket information HERE.
Tonight’s concert has been put on by Melting Vinyl promoters and they have sold out the Green Door Store. The venue is therefore packed, but interestingly not with the usual college and university types, but with mainly more mature souls, who I guess are waiting to be entertained by former members of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Elastica, and The Wedding Present. I, myself, are here solely on the merits of Aircooled’s splendid work, and their previous bands are mainly irrelevant to me.
We are given a 67 minute set from the band and yet they only got through a mere eight tracks in this time period! There’s no sub three minute punk numbers with this lot! If you’re a fan of krautrock and psych then it’s simply Aircolled are for you!
The quintet take to the stage, with ever-smiling wayward-haired spectacled Oliver Cherer on our left (stage right) and he greets us with “You know that we are about an hour away that way (pointing East towards St. Leonards-on-Sea), but this does naff feel like a home gig”. Oliver is the group spokesperson and is in control of his Danelectro guitar with an impressive Fender pedal unit on the floor, a keyboard and vocals. To his left (our right) is blue boiler-suit wearing artist Mew who (as always) bops along the most in the group. She’s in charge of a wonderful retro Korg synth as well as having a go on a single drum pad for one song, a large egg shaker for two tunes, and a tambourine. Centre rear of the stage is Justin Welch on drums, and Roland electronic presets. Next to Mew is Riz Maslen in her multi-coloured striped flowing dress and she offers up (usually) shared vocals with Oliver, and she too has a synth, as well as a flute for one tune, a drum pad for another tune and a tambourine. At the far end from where I’m standing, (which is front left), is uber-cool bassist Katharine Wallinger who also utilises a circular shaker as well for one of the tracks.
Tonight Aircooled commence with ‘Airports’ from their current ‘Eat The Gold’ album. Oliver has a tinkle of his keyboard and immediately the sound reminds me of Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’ classic, and then Riz joins in on her synth and the band are away and it sounds swirly like an early Kraftwerk tune. Their second selection is referred to internally in the band as ‘Road Runner’ although released on 2023’s ‘St Leopards’ album as ‘Aircooled’ is a pretty long epic instrumental monster of a tune. The recorded version comes in at sixteen and a half minutes, I wasn’t timing tonight, but I was merrily psyching out to the tune. Mew hits the Korg and it sounds like a Sigue Sigue Sputnik beat, Oliver joins in with a screech of his guitar, and Justin beats away on the drumkit and Riz plays her keys and Katharine tickles the bass strings. This is a humongous tune!
We are back to their ‘Eat The Gold’ album with the arrival of the rockier ‘No Reason To Lie’ with its twangy guitar delivery and rhythmic drums and was the first track to feature joint vocals from Oliver and Riz. Selection four is ‘Offenhauser 360’ which is found on their ‘St Leopards’ album. I found myself shutting my eyes to this one as I merrily bounced along with one hand firmly placed on the stage speaker in order to not only balance myself but also to feel the music through my entire body. God it’s so hypnotic and my choice track of the set. It’s a long krautrock masterpiece with a decent underlying deep bass guitar backing along with the drums to the fore which leads the other band members along. For minutes on end this tune is devoid of any vocals, until eventually Riz pipes up while being accompanied with some choice cymbal action from Justin.
Song five was from the latest album, this track being the dramatic slow chugging ‘Sister Ray’ sounding ‘Transmission Transmission’ with shared vocals from Riz and Oliver as well as some notable Joy Division style drumming, although this isn’t their ‘Transmission’. Next up is another instrumental in the form of ‘Star Rider’ from ‘Eat The Gold’ which features Riz on flute and some really decent melodic keys to begin with prior to the drums kicking in. Katharine’s continuous bass riff is to die for, as is the overall vibe which reminds me of Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’ and several tunes from Neu! Their penultimate selection this evening is another from their ‘Eat The Gold’ album, this is ‘Sing Pilgrim, Sing!’ which Oliver jokes is the band’s religious number. It’s a wonderful slab of further Krautrock, think early Kraftwerk psyching out and you have it. Katharine’s bass was sounding just like Paul Gardner’s used to be in Tubeway Army’s, as in ‘My Shadow In Vain’. Riz’ vocals were absolutely superb and she also has a go on the solo drumpad as did Mew, who also took to the tambourine at another stage. There’s elements of Stereolab in here and it’s like the Talking Heads ‘Psycho Killer’ on steroids!
They conclude tonight’s performance with their earworm dance number, this being ‘Supamotodisco’ which is from their ‘St Leopards’ album. This is a slow builder until Oliver’s guitar kicks in, then Katharine’s bass, followed by the remaining band members. It’s shakers a plenty to this tune! And at 9:36pm they were done, which gave them a sizable 24 minutes in order to shift as much signed merch as possible! It’s been yet another fabulous performance!
Aircooled:
Oliver Cherer – vocals, guitar, synth
Justin Welch – drums, electronic presets
Katharine Wallinger – bass, shaker
Riz Maslen – vocals, synth, flute, drum pad, tambourine
Mew – synth, drum pad, large egg shaker, tambourine
Aircooled setlist:
‘Airports’ (from 2024 ‘Eat The Gold’ album)
‘Aircooled’ (from 2023 ‘St Leopards’ album)
‘No Reason To Lie’ (from 2024 ‘Eat The Gold’ album)
‘Offenhauser 360’ (from 2023 ‘St Leopards’ album)
‘Transmission Transmission’ (from 2024 ‘Eat The Gold’ album)
‘Star Rider’ (from 2024 ‘Eat The Gold’ album)
‘Sing Pilgrim, Sing!’ (from 2024 ‘Eat The Gold’ album)
‘Supamotodisco’ (from 2023 ‘St Leopards’ album)
Support this evening came from solo artist Ollo who has recently moved across the world from Sydney, Australia to live here in Brighton with his partner. This evening is his first gig in the UK for six years! According to his Bandcamp page he is “Exploring music with disregard for genre since the last century. Now includes side project The Nethered”.
Ollo graced us with his presence at 7:30pm and proceeded to perform eight tunes for us across the next 31 minutes, until 8:01pm. It’s a reasonably simple setup with a laptop, Korg synth and interestingly a Hulusi flute type instrument that looks like something snake charmers use! Clearly he was endeavouring to hypnotise the punters with this. His overall sound is retro 80’s synthpop with some decent analog beats in the mix. It’s inoffensive stuff, nothing too out there or industrial or tribal for instance. Whilst watching his set, both myself and our photographer Sara were endeavouring to grasp exactly who he sounds like. We couldn’t quite nail it, but fellow solo artist Pixelstorm sprang to mind, but there’s someone else in there as well. I was tempted to offer up Talk Talk, but that’s not quite it. Anyway, the punters enjoyed his performance, which featured all vocal tunes bar the final long instrumental number titled ‘Harpoon’.
Ollo:
Alex Ollo Crowfoot – vocals, synth, laptop, Hulusi Chinese instrument
Ollo setlist:
‘Trouble Is’
‘Only Now’
‘Fasnacht’
‘Day For Night’
‘Burn More Coal’
‘Double Exposure’
‘Litterbrain’
‘Harpoon’
