Friday 18 July 2008

Guapo @ ULU (Supporting Red Sparowes) 08/07/2008

Guapo are four guys who are very talented and probably a little unhinged. They play prog proper, of quirkily compelling character and of plenitudinous proportions. The wandering journey of a long song (or was it several?) that formed their set was an ongoing exploration of the strange and complex textures that their respective instruments could weave together: an epic interplay of guitar, drums, keyboard, bass, each spinning its own private spiritual path around the others - always in balance and never quite touching - to create a sound at once naive and deep, intricate and whole, organically electric. More than anything these guys knew how to draw the essence out of their battered instruments; pedals and keyboard effects seemed to unmask rather than distort their true character. The hunched keyboardist hammered at the keys as though he were prophesising on a vast organ in a lonely cathedral; the drummer carefully tinkled a little string of bells around his drumkit using nothing but space and air to gain new perspectives on a sound; the curly bassist pulled a clipper out of his jeans pocket to slide ethereally up and down the fretboard. Complete with sparkling lycra shirts, Guapo are all the visionary insight of the old prog masters made present as an intuitive understanding of their own powers of creation and of their connectedness with one another; with their audience; with earth and cosmos; and with the more mischevious and darkly magical forces in the universe that like to lead us astray once in a while.

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