Com Truise is working within an emerging niche inspired by the soaring synths from eighties John Carpenter soundtracks. But the first surprise was when a figure looking like the clean cut lawman younger brother of Fucked Up frontman Pink Eyes emerged on stage behind collection of electronic equipment; at the least you expected him to be on drums rather than his slightly lanky partner. The added presence of drums and robotic sequence of high hats and snares made sure the beats were more immediate than on record. It also provided an opportunity for the audience to be distracted from simply staring at a large man artfully twisting some knobs.
Throughout the set he remained fairly faithful to his source material, sometimes adding rapid-fire loops. The crowd recognised each track, cheering as soon as the intro came in. Much of the crowd attempted to dance, though the music seemed delightfully obtuse at times at dropping off-beats and breaking into slow jams as soon as the crowd got hyped.
Towards the end though it became self-indulgent as the crowd kept demanding another track and Com Truise was more than happy to say one more time; time after time. Tech problems during one song led him to half ironically say ‘what would we do without computers, computers suck’. Which was especially prescient considering his music was inspired by the futurism of eighties synth music and disseminated through the blogosphere leading to a sellout crowd for a niche genre. But with the recent success of Nicolas Winding Refn film Drive, and the subsequent chart peformance of its main theme song College’s A Real Hero in the UK charts 2011 seems the year for this weird digital musical micro-scene.
Adam Saunders
Twenty Three Beats Off 