White Denim, Magic Arm

Roadhouse, Manchester

Magic Arm (aka Marc Rigelsford) is a raw but fascinating proposition. The Mancunian one-man band is a Badly Drawn Boy for the MySpace set. His technique of multiple sampling within a song ensures that his brand of urban folk electronica begins by sounding like a scallied-up Bob Dylan and ends with him being seemingly joined by The Band.

White Denim, on the other hand, are a delightfully confusing bunch. Their fractured take on garage rock is musical mercury: it has a form, but shifts and changes in front of your very ears.

The Texan trio have clearly created a buzz; the small but excitable crowd lap up the 45-minute set. Most of their debut album, Workout Holiday, is aired but the feel is more of an elongated jam, with snippets of songs ebbing and flowing to the fore. They seem to have sonic ADHD, scuttling between MC5, The Stooges, via rudimentary LCD Soundsystem to Spacemen 3, and that’s just in the four minutes of the excellent ‘Mess Your Hair Up’.

Singer and guitarist James Petralli, with his recently acquired beard, is all snarls whilst singing, and big beaming smiles when not – like Dave Grohl’s kid brother. By contrast, bassist Steve Terebecki, looking like a maniacal Thunderbirds puppet, ably drives the punch of ‘Let’s Talk About It’ and the African rhythms of ‘Heart From Us All’.

But tonight’s gig is a challenge. What White Denim ask of their audience is to enjoy songs that morph, distort and openly deconstruct, before racing onto another idea. The effect is both liberating and unsettling – as an experience it’s either just a touch frustrating or a work of post-modern genius. Going on the reaction of tonight’s crowd, it’s the latter. John Freeman

Issue #52 - Very Bro-some

Featuring Panama Kings, ASIWYFA, an investigation into DIY touring, details of what over 25 of the finest NI bands are up to in 2009 and much more.