Superorganism
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER-
Superorganism embody everything it means to be a band in the 21st century: they met online through internet forums and once their messages started to solidify into a song it wasn’t long until they were exploiting your algorithms. The eight-piece are borderless, with members from Australia, New Zealand, America, Japan and the UK, and their sound encompasses this mishmash of influences to create something unique. However, while they’ve managed to carve a place for themselves in the brazen online world, their physical identity is a somewhat unknown quantity.
This is just their second UK live show and the darkness that engulfs us for 10 minutes before they come on stage just intensifies the mystery. Their entrance though is anything but subdued – here they come in fluorescent raincoats with small school bells in their hands. Lemons and coconut water stand in front of each member and nagging thoughts that we may be about to witness a gimmick are abound.
The singalong guitar riff of ‘It’s All Good’ quickly puts those doubts to bed. It has touchstones with Demon Dayz-era Gorillaz and the lead singer’s multi-coloured paper sunglasses coupled with the bright light flashing over their galaxy-themed tablecloth echoes this eccentricity. ‘Nobody Cares’ is more slacker-rock than flamboyant and its laid back soundscape fits perfectly in a time when figures like Mac DeMarco, Courtney Barnett and Frankie Cosmos attract copious amounts of admiration. The choir of three remove their raincoats in unison with the shimmering prog-rock synths and skittle drums of ‘In The Night-Time.’ Everything here is premeditated but their passion is still tangible. The chorus is Arcade Fire-like in its magnitude and the climax is similarly euphoric with the backing singers’ voices soaring to new heights.
The humour that is inherent to lead singer Orono’s lackadaisical, sober delivery waivers when the Japanese teenager, who is below five foot, repeats that she’s “happy being a prawn” on a rather forgettable track. The band follows this up though with the best track of the night. The song starts with a repeated garble of the term “superorganism”, before the band ask, “You want to be a superorganism?” rhetorically over a towering chorus. “We’re going to play that song,” Orono remarks glibly ahead of their most famous song to date, ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’. The pranging guitar sound is not dissimilar to the sound you hear when you fail at an arcade game and the pause in the song’s main hook recalls the suspense you felt as a child in the moments before you died on Time Crisis.
Their set is just forty-five minutes long and the night is over before ten o’clock, yet in that small amount of time the group showed how good they’re likely to be as a live band. Whether they can create enough peaks and troughs to sustain an album remains a question. However, with so many creative minds to boot they have everything in their armoury to ensure that they’re not just a flash in the pan but instead a band able to throw a kaleidoscope of colours and make sure that they stick.
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Hi all, my name is Paddy and I have a love for everything from African music to indie to house (basically anything other than heavy metal). Gigging and listening to albums are genuinely the things I most value and love doing.
