10/10/26, OCM presents at The Nest

Anglo-Turkish harp and electronics duos aren’t exactly ten-a-kuruş so Masal are intriguing from the outset. Although the opening number gives us the abstraction of pitched radio static, most of Alastair Johnson’s beats tend towards the fuzzy warmth of the less bloody-minded side of Warp’s pioneering Artificial Intelligence compilations (who remembers when that term had positive associations?). It’s distorted and sonically scuffed but still friendly and unaggressive. Most pleasing, but Masal don’t often manage to be memorable, mostly because Özlem Simsek’s harp is ornamental without feeling hugely consequential. Of course, prettiness is the harpist’s burden, but the runs and flourishes often sound like polite embellishments rather than memorable motifs. Exceptions are the third number which weaves what sounds like a riff from a lost Lalo Schifrin spy theme around late-90s big beat, and a later track where a bleary-eyed trip-hop rhythm is coupled with a lovely melody that sounds like something from a Renaissance dance – when it’s played in different octaves it sounds cleverly like a sample being triggered at different pitches in a vintage hip-hop or drum ‘n’ bass track.

Lunatraktors are Carli Jefferson and Claire Le Couter, but for the first minutes of their show this is immaterial, as they’re both hidden deep in huge bushy haystacks of colourful warning cordon tape, a pair of slightly psychedelic cousin Its. They bimble around a little making non-verbal noises, like something from a preschool TV show with scavenged costumes, a sort of post-apocalyptic Postgate production. It is hilarious, and just a tiny bit disconcerting. This dichotomy sums up their detourned folk songs and queered takes on broadside ballads, half the time they’re making goofy jokes and performatively bickering like an old married couple – much amusement is milked from a wayward, droopy mic stand – and the other they’re giving some quite intense emotional heft to songs of freedom and social injustice. 

The fact that the vocals are over-egged and grotesquely emoted panto-style paradoxically adds to their power. One clatter of percussion and campy declamatory honking sounds like a cross between Tom Waits, Phil Daniels, and Rod, Jane & Freddy, but another has a quite beautiful, wistful melody on end-blown flute (we think – an awkward pillar means we have to guess at most of what Le Couter is doing when they’re not swathed in hazard ribbon). Later, Jefferson plays such a twitchy rhythm on a song based on unionising classic ‘Joe Hill’ on multiple items of percussion, pitched and unpitched, it almost resembles a post-dubstep beat by Joker or Ramadanman. And that’s not even half of this mystifying Folkenstein set. 

So often when folk music is brought into the art environment it becomes po-faced and worthy, but Lunatraktors are like carnivalesque street performers: impressive, creative, sloppy, sentimental, and constantly entertaining…though we did keep checking there wasn’t a grubby urchin quietly picking the pockets of the richest-looking attendees.

David Murphy