Fool’s Gold and Benin City, Camden Bar Fly

Fool’s Gold’s debut album brims over with the enthusiasm of a band who have discovered - primarily through African music - that there’s another way to play the electric guitar other than to just form workman-like bar-chords, stamp down hard on the distortion pedal, and then hit those six strings as hard as you can.  And fortunately for them, there’s a young audience clearly thrilled to have this discovery passed onto them. By the end of their set at the jam-packed Bar Fly, there’s actually a substantial number of the audience pogo-ing! I never thought I’d see that occurring to music that owes more to Congolese rumba than it does to any kind of CBGB’s rock tradition.

But this six-piece from LA are the rarest of American bands in their enthusiasm for borrowed sounds from all over the African continent. Their opening number “Nadine” seems to be a distillation of the whole of the classic Ethiopiques compilations of 1970s Ethiopian jazz and funk into one nifty slice of contemporary pop/rock. Then there’s “Ha Dvash” which makes excellent use of a loping, desert blues-style rhythm and a subtly elastic guitar riff which Tinariwen would be proud of.

But it’s bass player and vocalist Luke Top, singing in both English and Hebrew, that helps the band achieve an individuality which transcends their numerous influences. Top likes to make use of the kind of crooning, airborne melodies favoured by the likes of Morrissey and David Byrne, and when he sings in Hebrew an agreeable tension is created by that language’s guttural qualities and the crystalline, cyclical guitar riffs endlessly unfurling from Lewis Pesacov's lead guitar. For a moment in “Ha Dvash” Pesacov seems to channel Television-era Tom Verlaine as he cranks up the tension with a deceptively simple solo that slowly builds in intensity before we are eventually rescued by a return to the safety of the more melodic hook of the sax riff.

By the end of their relatively short set, the band have played most of their self-titled debut album, with the highlight being the absurdly happy and shiny “Surprise Hotel” which, with its flirting, entwining guitar lines, bubbling bass and fast-flowing rythmn, is pleasingly reminiscent of the 1980s Mbilia Bel classic “Eswi Yo Wapi” (which both John Peel and Charlie Gillett were inordinately fond of). The evening ends with “The World is all There is” which is essentially an excuse to get the audience to sing along with its chorus, the “Oh oh ohs” of which are tailor-made for football terrace-like chanting.

At the moment, Fool’s Gold are still in the shadow of the inexplicably huge Vampire Weekend - those other young Americans currently dabbling in the tricky polyrhythms and intricately picked guitar riffs of Africa. But it seems obvious to me that the joyful, almost painfully ecstatic music of Fool’s Gold is the product of inspired jamming sessions, whereas Vampire Weekend’s more plastic, arch confection conjures an image of a band gathered round a mixing desk, rather than a band who know that great music comes from playing together until the sum is no longer just the parts, and great music fills the air.

Finally a word about support act Benin City. Trombone, sax, bass, drums, and a single female backing vocalist conjure a meaty break-beaty armature over which two charismatic rappers/singers, Joshua Idehen and Musa Okwonga, hang their deftly jumping and tumbling lyrics. The resulting brew of jazz, funk and hip-hop brought to mind everyone from James Brown to the B52s, but more importantly this up-and-coming band sound 100 per cent 21st century.

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A subtly surreal video for the track "Surprise Hotel" by Fool's Gold on YouTube