While DJ Clinic’s turntables rang out a lethargic four-four beat to the underlings, upstairs the crowd in the Old Blue Last was digging their heels in for ladies night: four solo performances by Teri Gender Bender, May Roosevelt, The Sound of Lucrecia & Kool Clap, drawn from the roster of Red Bull Music Academy participants, followed by a DJ Set from The Golden Silvers.
 


Up first was The Sound of Lucrecia. The audience could be sure the year is 2010 as the blue stage lighting shimmered off the screen of an iPhone stuck irreverently to the Barcelonan’s Gibson. Tweaking volumes and effects wirelessly from its touch-screen, Lucrecia’s guitar would build to endless cascades through her loop pedal. Indecipherable lyrics reminiscent of Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser harmonised with themselves on perpetual loop. Lucrecia’s post-punk took on a new twist as she picked up a bass and plucked out wandering melancholia to a Múm-like cacophony of pops and clicks.
 


A short break later found a stark figure in a red dress centre-stage. As ghostly music swirled around her, not a hair on her head moved. With pursed lips of deep rouge, she barely appeared to breathe, her solitary submission to existence beyond that of a waxwork the hyper-controlled movement of her hands. The left floated up and down, the right shifted about like curious hand-signals communicated to some unknown presence. This unearthly aura made her electronic music all the more unsettling. But along with its alien whine, the theremin May Roosevelt played with such conviction and finesse was almost certainly making the assembled masses fall deeply in love with her.
 


A few minutes downstairs amongst Parisian DJ Kool Clap’s easy dancefloor grooves was long enough to miss the first few seconds of Teri Gender Bender’s theatrics. After a few moments of vocal projection proving she had limited regard for the soundsystem, she pulled off her featureless white mask to reveal an equally white face and reddish lipstick. Her chintz pinafore, stained red from previous performances hinted at an impending theatrical terror.
 


Musically, Teri bridges the hitherto imperceptible gap between White Stripesminimalism – with her one-woman, one-guitar, one kick drum technique, electronic – Russian Cossack march and Kate Bush’s lyrical wailing. She started her second track with a stiletto in her mouth and ended it all but swallowing the microphone. Later, a few seconds after the excited audience responded “get it out!” to Teri’s question “do you want to see my armpit hair?” no one could quite remember why they’d responded in the affirmative.

Greater theatrics ensued, but by this point it was hard to establish what was performance and what was not. One minute Teri was all over the stage, the next it was empty as a figure scampered through the audience on all fours. Moment’s later Teri appeared again at the back of the bar, silhouetted by the streetlights beyond the window she had mounted. She left behind a long smear of red paint that had made its way into her mouth through unknown causes. “That was a song called the Dance of the Lady of Distress”. Of course it was.
 


Proceedings were trimmed and sanded with a DJ set from XL’s finest, the Golden Silvers. But it was doubtless Teri’s performance that the crowd left with. That alone was worth the door fee… pity it was free.



Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes, Zapopan, Mexico) - Live from London - VICE & RBMA Knees Up, Old Blue Last
The Sound Of Lucrecia (Pruna, Barcelona, Spain) - Live from London - VICE & RBMA Knees Up, Live at Old Blue Last
May Roosevelt (CooRecords, Thessaloniki, Greece) - Live from London - VICE & RBMA Knees Up, Live at Old Blue Last
Cohoba (Stereoptico, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) - Live from London - VICE & RBMA Knees Up, Live at Old Blue Last