Live Review | Still House Plants @ Strange Brew, Bristol

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Still House Plants | Brother May

Strange Brew, Bristol

12th April 2024

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The wildly experimental Still House Plants took to Strange Brew to celebrate the release of their new album

When venues decide to shake up the classic layout of a gig, it can sometimes feel tacky or forced. In Strange Brew, this is never the case. Following caroline’s excellent and intimate performance earlier this month, Qu Junktions brought Still House Plants and Brother May to town for an equally unique but even more experimental night in one of Bristol’s most forward-thinking venues.

Up first was Brother May, the London rapper with the hardest job of the night: getting Bristol’s very serious experimental crowd to get pumped up.

Level with the crowd, smoke machines filled the room, with Brother May jolting in and out of vision, coming into the crowd before being plunged back into the fog, grabbed by outside forces. His set was intense, creative and surprisingly uplifting, a refreshingly positive set to ease us into the darkness of what was yet to come.

May’s electric performance was backed by the hypnotic, twisted beats of long-time collaborator and CURL collective member Mica Levi, who you may know from their terrifying and uncomfortable soundtracks for ‘Under The Skin‘ and, more recently, the Oscar-winning ‘Zone Of Interest‘. Levi’s production, combined with Brother May’s rapid delivery and charismatic stage presence made for an unpredictable and incredibly high-energy performance. Miraculously, the crowd was moving too.

As the fog cleared, Still House Plants took to the stage (the floor), the trio facing one another without uttering a single word. In fact, not a single word was uttered to the audience for their entire set, maintaining the band’s word-of-mouth mystery; secretly, I was quite pleased about this.

With their third album ‘If I don’t make it, I love u’ out the same day, Still House Plants’ sound was firmly in my head, with the project’s difficult, abrasive but strangely addictive character intriguing me. It’s a tough listen, in a good way, and the band’s music may seem impenetrable at first.

Seeing their live set unfold, however, made all the pieces fall into place. Every seemingly random or inexplicable decision from the studio recording suddenly made sense. With the smallest of glances or signals, every off-kilter riff, drum pattern or vocal passage was deliberate, assured and extremely confident. Still House Plants are so sure of their sound, and that sound is so very much theirs.

Live, Jessica Hickie-Kallenbach’s vocals are astounding. The range in their voice, combined with the confidence in which they project their lyrics, makes for one of the most unique voices in experimental music currently. Lines are repeated and repeated, taking on new meaning with each warped iteration.

Equally exciting is the instrumentation, made up of only guitar and drums. Guitar strums sound, delayed, twisted and sinister, matching the haunting energy of the vocals, while the drums are jittery, unnerving and playful. Combined, Still House Plants create an atmosphere that is off-putting, uncomfortable and unconventional, yet somehow entirely hypnotic. As an audience member, it was sometimes hard to find the page the band were reading from, yet each time you catch a glimpse of understanding or a small pocket to groove with, it’s all the more satisfying.

Let the album’s strange sonic waves wash over you and, if you find yourself coming back, go and experience the magic that Still House Plants can create live.

Listen to ‘If I don’t make it, I love u‘ here:

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