I find myself weaving through a small crowd of people lingering outside The Trades Club. I brush up past Laura Palmer t-shirts and wool trench coats. People’s cigarettes leave a trail of white mist in the air I breathe and purple hands clutch onto pint glasses.
Myself, I don’t hang around. I get straight inside. I have tunnel vision and I bypass figures clinging onto walls to push my way into view of the stage. The room has the mustiness of 200 urban creatives.
About a couple weeks earlier, I had fallen into a musical mania thanks to Insecure Men’s A Man For All Seasons. My days were pretty much spent falling in and out of the album’s injured, throbbing spirit. It’s the band’s third album, if counting Karaoke for One: Vol. 1, and Saul Adamczewski is now playing with some brand new faces.
As with a lot of great musical endeavours, the album was born from a relationship break-up – and the subsequent mental breakdown that drove Saul into a cupboard in Tulse Hill. What I find most refreshing is that the album doesn’t feel sour. It’s not a revenge project built on scorn but a rather romantic and tender declaration of healing.
Saul first comes out on stage alone. He’s wrapped in so many layers of clothing he would fit in more with a group of Arctic explorers. He sits on a wooden stool, picks up an acoustic guitar and warns us all his voice is going.
Immediately after, he launches into the spellbinding vocal performance that is Tulse Hill Station. Saul deserves to be in the spotlight, especially so for a song like that. His band is huddled at the side of the stage watching him with sparkling eyes.
After, a stream of people walk out from the shadows and onto the stage, bringing Insecure Men back into band formation. When Alien comes on, it feels like the room breathes a sigh of relief. It’s a love song in its barest form but with the despair of a heartbroken artist. The song really hones in on the vision of Saul that I have – if you give a crooner meth and a Fall record, this is the man that will be produced.
The band of misfits launch into Krab next. The most bluesy of the bunch, Krab is intimidatingly sexy. The sound chugs on with dedication and Saul croaks out the vocals in a frenetic display of affection. They then regress into the past with Cliff Has Left the Building from the 2018 self-titled debut. Its dreamlike jazz harmonies are converted into a more intense and grounded rendition for live performance.
This surprisingly more upbeat sound is swiftly crushed with Time Is A Healer. Saul describes this a “white boy soul song”, which does ring true with just how smooth it is. It sounds like butter. It’s avant-garde with its turmoil, dragging you in and pushing you away. You could slow dance to it with a lover if you ignore what he’s saying.
It’s a rather short set but you could never predict anything from this bunch. Most of their time spent playing is dedicated to a sort of punk soundscape they entitled “drone” on the setlist. No lyrics and no sense, just noise. Saul thrusts himself about on stage and it looks almost like his guitar is guiding him in every sense. It builds and drops continuously, has moments of rhythm and some with none.
Punk is such a saturated term nowadays. Does anyone really know what it means? After the drone I think I do. Playing a mellow set of folk-jazz-soul and then diving head first into a full on experimental crashing, screaming frenzy must be the only thing I can confidently say is punk.
I really didn’t want it to be over. I wanted to stay in this chaotic romance abyss forever. But as does everything, it did in fact end and I was pushed out into the cold night – feeling slightly in love.
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