The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

Mark E Smith loves toying with his fans. At every recent Fall show, he’s enlisted as his support act the audio-visual artist Safi Sniper, whose live cut-ups routinely draw noisy disapproval. In a similarly mischievous spirit, Smith tonight brings us Von Südenfed.

A collaboration with German electronic duo Mouse on Mars, Smith’s latest project is designed to defy expectations. Where The Fall is a dictatorship, this appears to be a democracy, and the music is closer to Mouse on Mars’s than The Fall’s. A laptop-generated mix of fiddly electronica and all-out industrial techno, it’s well served tonight by Heaven’s excellent soundsystem.

The venue’s not sold out, and the atmosphere is more quietly reverent than that of a typical, rowdy Fall gig. However, some things don’t change. After Andi Toma and Jan St Werner get the live electronics going, Smith makes us wait a while before he stalks onstage, decides his microphone isn’t working and ponderously seeks a replacement into which to shout: “GERMAN FEAR! GERMAN FEAR! GERMAN FEAR OF THE ÖSTERREICH!” Loud, distorted and reassuringly insane, this opening volley fairly sets the tone.

After a straight reading of soulful single ‘The Rhinohead’, Smith’s maverick tendencies kick in. With his back to the audience, he shakes loose what looks like a wrap of speed from a sheaf of lyrics and discreetly dispatches it from his hand. Suitably invigorated, he prowls to the lip of the stage to deliver such gems of self-aggrandisement as “I’m the DJ tonight!” and, repeatedly, “I am the great MES!”

As Toma and St Werner keep up the barrage of beats and bleeps, Smith wanders in and out. It’s annoying at times, but his twitchy restlessness at least ensures a better spectacle than most electronic acts can muster. There’s also evidence that Smith’s increasingly fragmented, repetitious lyrics may be better suited to techno than rock. Certainly, his unique brand of paranoid shouting is deployed effectively during ‘Fledermaus Can’t Get It’ and ‘Rhinohead’ b-side ‘Slow Down Ronnie’, which offers hilarious advice to Smith’s sporting-world equivalent, Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Between them, the bouncers positioned either side of the stage sum up the audience reaction: one fixes Smith with a stare of quizzical horror; the other dances about with a broad grin on his face. With Von Südenfed, Smith’s again producing work that equally confounds and exhilarates while always steering clear of the comfort zone. He’s back in London again before Christmas, with The Fall. Safi Sniper supports.

More content of interest...

• Voodoo Gunge Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith (Posted in 017 June 2008 | Print)
• The Fall Imperial Wax Solvent (Posted in 016 May 2008 | Long Players | The Stool Pigeon Review)