Music > Live Reviews

Wooden Shjips

Norwich Arts Centre

05/06/19

There was a real buzz of anticipation about this show when I arrived, the ‘sold out’ signs were up, the garden was filling nicely and everywhere I turned there was a familiar face. The buzz wasn’t just because Wooden Shjips were playing though, there was plenty of interest in the support act, Russian psych outfit, Gnoomes. Back for their fourth visit to Norwich, they played to a packed hall, and having never seen them before I was very keen to see if the hype was justified.

It was. A four piece, their music is driving psychedelic rock, with an air of ambience, and touches of heavy shoegaze. I even had a flashback to seeing Stereolab play this same venue sometime in the early 90s. What elevated their sound to something more unique was the excellent Moog & synth playing of Masha Piankova, giving the guitars the space to soar. I can’t be certain, but it feels like the Gnoomes of 2019 are a much heavier band than they were even just a year ago, their obvious confidence completely justified. More about the vibe than the song, their 45 minutes flew by, and it’s great to see that their brand-new album has been released by Rocket Recordings, the home of Goat and Pigs x 7, who wouldn’t want to be on that label?

The last time Wooden Shjips main man Ripley Johnson played Norwich Arts Centre he was with his ‘other’ band Moon Duo. That proved to be a memorable night of sun kissed psychedelia, aurally and visually, and it was no real surprise that Wooden Shjips gave us all of that, and much more. The band’s sound is a mix of garage rock, fuzz guitar, drone, Krautrock, shoegaze, 60s outsider bands and a whole lot more besides. Like Gnoomes, in fact like most serious psych bands, this isn’t really about which songs they played, it was about the atmosphere they created over the course of their set.
Drummer Omar Ahsanuddin kept the beat steady throughout, Nash Whalen’s keyboards provided the necessary WHOOSH, bass player Dusty Jermier added the one element Moon Duo lacked, and Ripley’s voice weaved in and out of the mix, with every song featuring some exceptional guitar playing. Visually too, this was a feast for the eyes. The screen wasn’t big enough to hold the projections which covered the entire stage and band, even the crowd at the front, and it created a wonderful sense of being inside the music, rather than merely standing and observing.

There was such a great atmosphere in the hall, with many completely lost in their own world. There were brief passages where the sameness of the music meant my attention wandered a bit, but these moments were brief, and usually swept away by another searing guitar solo from Ripley. Ideally when watching a band like this, we all needed to have collectively licked the toad’s back and thrown off our clothing/restraints on arrival, but there’s no avoiding the fact that this was a Monday night gig in Norwich. Having that said that though, the band took us as far out as they could, and whilst it may not have been quite as intense as a show by, say, Acid Mother’s Temple, this delivered exactly what I hoped and believed it would.