Fujiya & Miyagi

Stiff Kitten, Belfast

You would hope that Brighton quartet Fujiya & Miyagi (note: not a Japanese duo) weren’t expecting a big crowd on this sleepy Sunday evening in Belfast, because, sadly, they don’t get one. It must be a bit of a comedown after the reported 1,000-capacity sellout show they played in Dublin the night before. But while the venue is sparsely populated for support acts Kowalski and Project Jenny, Project Jan, interest among those present is such that, by the time the headliners arrive, a tight cluster of excited bodies near the front makes the Stiff Kitten feel busier than it actually is. And, as is always the case at a Fujiya & Miyagi gig, the band seem thoroughly thrilled that anyone has taken the trouble to come and watch them. Their coy pleasure is quite endearing, really.

The crowd’s enthusiasm is mainly based on the band’s last album, 2006’s splendid Transparent Things, on which they made their name. Now, though, they are back with Lightbulbs, another exercise in meshing Krautrock, the arch funk of early Talking Heads, Hot Chip-esque electro and smooth, literate pop. And though surprises in the new album are few, what has changed is the addition of drummer Lee Adams. As it happens, the first few songs are played without him, programmed beats deemed sufficient backing as ‘Uh’ gets underway. And for several of the shorter, funkier songs from both albums – ‘Uh’, ‘Collarbone’, ‘Photocopier’, ‘Pterodactyls’ – it’s a point of debate whether the presence of a live drummer makes much of a difference to the success of the performances.

However, it’s when the band makes its forays into linear, motorik-driven Krautrock that Adams comes into his own, as the inexorable forward thrust of his drumming pushes songs like ‘Cassettesingle’, ‘Conductor 71’, ‘Hundreds And Thousands’ and recent single ‘Knickerbocker’ into the realms of pure, hypnotic bliss. These are also the songs in which Steve Lewis’s box of electronic tricks are used to best effect, wreathed as they are in glorious washes of vintage synthesisers and percussive keys. It’s undeniable that several of these songs are at times difficult to tell apart, but when they are as flat-out transportive as this, it scarcely matters. And when the closing ‘Hundreds And Thousands’ slyly morphs into a joyous reprise of ‘Knickerbocker’, Adams’s sticks gleefully racing around the kit and smashing into cymbals, the deal is sealed. Chris Jones

Issue #51 - I Told You This Would Be A Good Issue

Featuring Biffy Clyro, Of Montreal, Duke Special, Frightened Rabbit, Cold War Kids, Jay Reatard, Pat Mills, and more.