Spill Gold, 16 Apr, Hatch
"One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz," Lou Reed once said. By this definition, the night's opening act Feudalism Now! are definitely pushing it. With a thirty minute set comprised of just one two-note motif, the group test the audience's patience in the most gloriously mischievous way.
"We're not allowed to play more than two notes," one of the performers tells me. Surprisingly the performance is actually quite hypnotising, and the half hour is over in what feels like a flash. After a painstaking switchover period (the room is too small to accommodate all the acts' gear at once), Dutch two-piece Spill Gold take the stage.
We're not allowed to play more than two notes
With an effervescent energy reminiscent of the tribal voodoo of Goat, the band are at their best when they're at their most frantic, such as in set closer 'Mercury', which draws its energy from a stomping steel pan beat. Unfortunately, however, there are whispers of a missing keyboardist and, for the majority of the set, it shows.
While fellow dream-pop purveyors Beach House have flawlessly mastered the art of the two-piece, Spill Gold tonight are sadly unable to rise to comparable heady heights. Ultimately, one can't help feeling the songs are suffocated by their own busyness, with this sadly being the group's downfall.
Singer Rosa Loeloe is constantly wrestling between her dual commitments as a moody synth player and ecstatically energetic guitarist. Percussionist Jessica Tucker, on the other hand, suffers the all-too-common fate of a drummer simply playing too much. Equipped with a better soundsystem and more appropriate set of circumstances though, Spill Gold may well be a force to be reckoned with.
Harry Gold
