AUDIOBOOKS + MERMAID CHUNKY – PATTERNS, BRIGHTON 8.6.23
OK, I’m going to begin this review with a bit of a revelation! The Queen of Punk (Jordan Mooney) was a huge fan of audiobooks. There! Said it! I know what you might be thinking…”How on earth did Jordan love audiobooks, when she witnessed the formation of the Sex Pistols, was Adam & The Ants first manager, and loved bands that also included the Ramones and the Buzzcocks, whereas audiobooks sound a million miles away from them!”. Right then, let’s get to the bottom of this…..
Let’s forget what all of the above’s music sounds like, but in fact concentrate on their mentality and thought processes! There’s a common factor that links them all, that being that they all have operated at the fringes of society and the music business. They go against the grain, they think outside the box, and they do what they wanna do on their own terms! Society will simply have to catch up with them! This is very much the ethos of Evangeline Ling and David Wrench, who are audiobooks (note the spelling without the capital ‘A’) and are very much punk rock in their thinking.
Five years ago (in 2018) a mutual friend of Evangeline and David introduced them at a party saying “You’re a weirdo. He’s a weirdo. You’re going to get on great”. How very punk rock! The duo clicked and set about the business of producing their uniquely wonky electro ditties that came from their hearts and minds, but without compromising in any way…more punk rock. Backed by the fact that David is also fully aware of Jon Savage’s account on punk rock, I know so, he told me himself! audiobooks lyrics tell bizarre tales of things as far apart as little girls wandering the streets in search of lost dolls to toxic masculinity and its effects….more punk rock thinking!
audiobooks emerged from their recording sessions and on 18th May 2018 they performed at Horatios on Brighton Pier as part of The Great Escape new music festival. I was fortunate enough to have been in attendance at that showcase and reported thus:
“Evangeline Ling and the Rick Wakeman lookalike Anglesey born Welsh musician and studio producer/sound engineer David Wrench are Audiobooks. They are rather interesting people as David has also won the BBC Radio Cymru C2 ‘Producer of the Year’ award five times and has played in Julian Cope’s group Black Sheep. Whereas Evangeline is a fashion model along with her older brother and sister and she was also in a synthpop duo called The Linedots.
Audiobooks were one of the surprise package of the whole TGE for us. We weren’t expecting their look or sound to be honest. If you can imagine The Flying Lizards meets Bjork meets Let’s Eat Grandma, then you get the idea that this duo are quirky. We love quirky! We love Audiobooks! We love their random comical lyrics and jaunty synth rhythms. Their track ‘Swansea’ (which hopefully will see the light of day by the end of the year) will bring a laugh/smile to anyone’s face. They have just released their 4 track ‘Gothenburg EP’ and ‘Pebbles’ from said EP is a remarkable piece of music and deserves to be picked up and used in countless motion pictures!”.
Their debut album entitled ‘Now! (in a minute)’ on Heavenly Recordings followed on 2nd November 2018 and was duly purchased from Resident music in Kensington Gardens. If discombobulating observations over discomfiting oscillations is your thing, then ‘Now! (in a minute)’ is certainly for you.
Their second album ‘Astro Tough’ (also on Heavenly Recordings) followed on Friday 1st October 2021, and where else better to celebrate this second long player than with a live appearance at Resident music in Brighton on the actual day of its release – Read our review HERE.
On 12th April this year, audiobooks dropped their 4-track EP titled ‘Gulliver’, which features ‘Burnt Pictures’, ‘Beekeeper’, ‘Tryna Tryna Take Control’ and ‘Milan Fashion Week’. This charming innovative duo announced a welcome return to Brighton as part of their select 6-date UK tour in support of ‘Gulliver’, which saw them play Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, London, Cambridge and finishing off tonight at Patterns courtesy of concert promoters JOY. Suffice to say that with every return to Brighton, I’m ever present at the front in order to lap up whatever Evangeline and David have to offer in their awkwardly bemused style.
On entry to Patterns this evening, I’m pleasantly surprised that there’s only a small queue for the bar. Liquid refreshment is purchased and we head to the front of the stage, where we are greeted by friends and amazingly no metal crowd barriers! Someone’s clearly informed the powers that be that there won’t be any moshing and crowd-surfing this evening! This enabled a closer look at the equipment on offer this evening. The stage is awash with it and it’s clear that both acts’ props are already in place. We will come to the support later.
Evangeline solely requires her microphone, whereas David is the technical wizard and throughout their 15 track 73 minute set, busies himself by flitting between the Ashun Sound Machines Hydrasynth, Nord Electro 6 keyboard, Roland drum pads, a laptop, and other boxes of pre-sets and samples, as well as two Fender guitars, and the rather wonderful compact Arturia KeyStep keyboard. The sound quality for this evening is crisp and bang on! Hat’s off to the sound engineer at the rear.
They grace the stage at 8:21pm to rapturous applause from the many fans in the packed crowd. There’s an air of anticipation and they commence with the thundering beats and twisting electronics of standout track ‘The Doll’, from the 2021 ‘Astro Tough’ album, which is exactly what my friend Ang had hoped that they would perform this evening. Interestingly for this number Evangeline is wearing a wolf mask and holds the microphone under the gap at the bottom.
This is followed by the first of two unreleased “test tracks” which Evangeline declares is titled ‘Falsely Accused’. They test the reaction to the unreleased material and if response is favourable, then their compositions eventually see the light of day. Therefore based on this funky numbers delivery, expect ‘Falsely Accused’ to turn up on their next release! The lyrics include “brothers, sisters”, which immediately brought to mind Heaven 17’s debut single ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’ from 1981.
After song three ‘The English Manipulator’ (2021 ‘Astro Tough’ album), the duo performed the new ‘Gulliver’ EP in its entirety, commencing with ‘Bee Keeper’, which is a slow starter, but then beautifully morphs into a 1981 Kraftwerk ‘Computer World’ album style backing beat.‘ Burnt Pictures’ is a more traditional synth number which seriously benefitted from David’s use of the compact Arturia KeyStep keyboard. ‘Tryna Tryna Take Control’ has a decent Bossa nova beat going on and ‘Milan Fashion Week’ is a slow ballad number with comical lyrics which brings a smile to many faces.
A trio of cuts from their last long player ‘Astro Tough’ followed, in the form of ‘Farmer’, which is another ballad, followed by ‘He Called Me Bambi’, which saw David giving one of his Fender guitars a good seeing too. Arguably their most rocky number and choice of track of the night from my mate Mark (husband of Ang). The quirky ‘Blue Tits’ rounded off the three songs, with its juxtaposition lyrics which fly in from all directions!
