Hush: Becoming Real, Factory Floor, O.Children

Seb Wheeler makes a noise about Rough Trade's new initiative.

It’s always a pleasure to visit the Royal Albert Hall and the occasion this time is Hush, a showcase of blossoming experimentalism organised by Rough Trade and the RAH in a conscious effort to release brand new (and near sacrilegious) reverberations into the 139 year old venue.

A few impressive flights lead to the Elgar Room, a setting that fits 350 people but feels much too broad to ever be truly intimate – a vibe the organisers seem to be striving to produce. The walls are decorated with intermittent photographs depicting all the greats: Hendrix, James Brown, Johnny Cash... They’ve all been here before. A canon of artists that those on the evening’s bill – O Children, Factory Floor and Becoming Real – surely seek to unsettle, if not unseat.

Shame then that the sound most likely to cause threat appears at the beginning of the night; Becoming Real unfurls in a half empty room crackling with small talk that seems to signal collective disinterest. But fuck it: Toby Ridler’s acting like it’s the AM even if no one else is. He fashions riddims which mess with current connotations of bass music. Elements of electronic hip hop, funky and grime are all contorted. Live, he shifts through sunken glitch into seismic swagger, using the counter balance between thick riffs of rubbery sub bass and sharp snare snaps as a constant template from which to manoeuvre. Ribbons of chopped vocal, bubbling electronics and overt synth stabs are all zapped into the mix, interchangeable layers that appear momentarily and to great effect, as vital decoration of more abstract compositions or the key components of thundering boom-bap outbursts. Becoming Real opens up a zone full of potent funk and hypnotic distortion leading to those much cherished feelings of disorientation and ecstasy found on any good dance-floor.

Providing a more substantial spectacle, Factory Floor play a powerhouse set that is intense in both tempo and volume. Three songs in total, all riding a heavy techno pulse that must have been hitting upwards of 130bpm, are delivered with unapologetic ferocity, each disintegrating around the ten minute mark. Impressive, but less imaginative than expected, especially as their leading, electronic bass drum was delivered so mercilessly; it dominated both the room and the band. Live percussion provided a polite motorik distraction while that lone guitar made repeated attempts to take the lead but failed, suffering from inadequate amplification even while being strangled in every way possible. A show of repeated sonic masochism, though here’s hoping they have more tricks to pull next time round.

Rough Trade have made a long career out of championing the totally far out and the irresistibly pop, and so with the relatively progressive efforts of Becoming Real and Factory Floor done and gone, out step O Children who shoot accessibility from the hip and trade in a vacuous brand of faux goth pomp and recycled riffage. Their appearance is a blow, totally conforming to tired tropes that Hush had so far, in this instance, done well to dismantle.