Party and be damned: my 20 best gigs of 2021 (semi-decimated)

After a Covid-blasted 2020, 2021 had to be better - right? Er no, not necessarily, but it was. Yep, despite the first six months being written off (zero gigs and little hope they'd ever come back), things cranked back into life in July and I managed to cram a few shows in after that. In fact, when I got properly into my stride (the last couple of months), 2021 has thrown up some really good gigs and - as ever - they showed how much great music is being bashed out by really talented musicians. Yeah man, the DIY music scene might be on life-support, but it’s vital signs are all still there. So, to re-cap: apart from the wasteland that was 2020, the not-to-be-missed Niluccio on noise best gigs of the year list has traditionally always comprised 20 good ones from the year (see the lists for 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010 if you can be bothered), but I’ve kept it to just ten for 2021. Quality control, innit? The stuff I caught during 2021 has generally been so good that in fact I could probably have stretched it to 20 anyway, but hey - it’s my party and I’ll do what I like. Here they come, walking down the street ... 

Bull: Factory Music Rooms, Barnsley, 5 September
Dinosaur Jr meets the Byrds (and many other bands as well), Bull were sweet-through-to-fierce and generally hard to place. Which is no bad thing. A standard four-piece (except when the singer whipped out a green-black trombone apparently made of rubber), Bull could hit some sweet harmonics and sound very West Coast/Neil Young. The next minute they switched to noise rock, complete with aggressive shouty vocals. Intense and infectious. I liked them.

Isaiah Williams/Irie B & Scooby/Messenger Sound/Black Crusader/I&I Presents Count C/Sisters In Dub: Box, Coventry, 2 October

Soundclash! A night of mini-battles between DJs and reggae selectors. Fun stuff. For me, Messenger Sound were possibly the best of the bunch, or at least they were when their toaster - a groovy geezer in a camel-coloured coat, black leather trousers and a bowler hat - relentlessly chanted his “This is messenger sound/It’s the talk of the town!” tag. Another highlight was Sisters In Dub doing their Althea & Donna-style thing accompanied by an excellent and righteous trumpeter. Meanwhile, one selector arrived with a fancy metal record box for his precious 45s which was very securely handcuffed to his own wrist. Serious vinyl, man.

Maurizio Maffezzoli: Basilica Collegiata di San Giuseppe, Seregno, 9 November
Soaringly beautiful and austere sacred music (Bach and Pozzoli) played in a cold, ornate and rather grand church tucked away in a small square in a non-fashionable (but very nice) northern Italian town. An audience comprising mostly Italian pensioners (pensionati) soaked up the organ tones (including some decidedly doom-laden drones) and a very pleasing flute accompaniment. A very worthwhile hour spent in church.

The Tubs/Leather.head: Avalon Cafe, London, 17 November
Extremely pleasant, tuneful stuff from The Tubs, who occasionally sounded not unlike a mid-80s indie-jangle band. The singer had a benign Pete Shelley-esque vibe, while a noticeably virtuoso guitar player seemed to be a reincarnation of Maurice Deebank (they even did a Felt cover, a rarity if ever there was one). Also: Leather.head, who I've praised previously. Art rock stuff with quietly sinister vocals (occasionally bursting into angry shrieks), tricksy arrangements, fantastic blurts of sax and trumpet accompaniment and impressively subtle drumming. It’s possibly because I’m a sucker for brooding rock tones like these, but I reckon Leather.head’s set probably produced the single best 30 minutes of live music from my truncated year in gigs.

Leather.head: this saxophone blurt is my saxophone blurt, not yours

Harold Printer/Left Hand Cuts Off The Right: Centrala, Birmingham, 20 November
Two solo performers and two similarly memorable names. Both of these knocked out sheet-metal walls of electronic noise (bleeps, buzzes, fragments of voices or animal sounds, ragged beats and other off-centre stuff), with HP possibly the more uncompromising of the two: ten-minute blocks of sound followed by a hollowed-out interlude with fragmentary ghost beats continuing for another minute or two. His version of an ominous silence? Instead of merch, HP gave away carrots, each pierced with a slightly sinister black nail holding a printed label advertising his Bandcamp. Marketing!

Raúl Cantizano: Ultra Local Records, Barcelona, 27 November

A lunchtime session in what must be Barcelona's smallest record shop-cum-venue. RC performed his mutant flamenco wizardy in front of a er, modest audience (15 max, with people drifting in and out, cans of Estrella in hand). Mr C had rigged up various pedals and other devices (including cheap plastic rotating fans) to mess about with his flamenco guitar playing. Hence: elegant guitar patterns subject to all manner of disturbance: percussive taps, whirring scrape-drones, electronic distortion squeals and other stuff I could barely comprehend. At one stage he began a strange guttural vocal drone (vaguely Buddhist) which sounded pretty amazing. Overall it was flamenco, Jim, but not as we know it.

Extra salsa on that: Raúl Cantizano going without his lunch to treat us to flamenco guitar weirdness 

Luigi Marino & Mark Wastell: Hundred Years Gallery, London, 4 December
Genuinely amazing music from Luigi Marino & Mark Wastell: a set-up of a gong and various cymbals and brass bowls (apparently wired for sound in some way), which were hit, scraped and caressed by brushes, percussion mallets and whirring battery-powered gadgets. A mighty audience of seven got to hear unearthly squeals and brooding percussive tones. There were drones decaying into near-silence and, at one point, a crescendo of gong beats and tremors that felt as if it was filling the room with some kind of high-pressure material. Overall it was like being deep underwater and hearing whales communicating - most probably telling each other that life on earth is doomed. All this in a freezing-cold basement with crepuscular lighting and only a beaker of red wine to cling onto for comfort. Perfect. 

Blitz Playhouse: Jaguar Dream Shoes, London, 8 December
Lovely stuff from this two-piece: a guitarist playing heavily treated chords to work up a semi-drone squall of atmospheric sound, while a singer - partly channelling Nico at times - talk-sang-intoned her way though rather moving songs which somehow plunged us into something dark and mysterious. The singer's grown-out dark brown bob and funereal mesh-lace gloves added to her haughty chantuese look. Gothic gloom in a Shoreditch basement on a cold, windswept night. Icy!

Tramadol/Belk: The Fenton, Leeds, 11 December
A gentle pre-Christmas carol service, a lovely choir, madrigals .. er, no. Not that. First off, Tramadol: a rather brutal noise assault. A belligerent singer/growler storming around (all boxy motorcycle jacket and attitude), stirring chord changes amid the cacophony and the not-exactly-comfortable sight of about ten strapping blokes in the crowd bouncing off the walls (and each other) down the front. Next: Belk. These were really good. Grindcore/noise but also inflections of grunge, moments of almost theatrical oddness, and (believe it or not) a vaguely jazzy feel. Maybe it was a coincidence, but the audience stopped moshing and really watched when these were on.

Belk, belking it out in Leeds

Suep/Garden Centre: JT Soar, Nottingham, 13 December 
Lo-fi is as lo-fi does - yep, some exceedingly casual proceedings from these two slightly interchangeable bands on a low-key, small-audience Monday night in rainy Nottingham. Suep were, if anything, the more relaxed/informal of the two. A duo (on this occasion at least) knocking out twee keyboards and vocals, backed by drum beats they seemed to use almost completely randomly (“let’s try this one, yeah, that sounds alright”). Garden Centre, featuring Suep’s keyboardist/vocalist (as well as the drummer from the Tubs, as above) hit a more VU-inclined vein (and when the smack begins to flow …). Touches of motorik-indie, a singer with a marvellously hi-pitched child-like voice (shades of Car Seat Headrest), with lots of bright melodies and hookiness - kinda irresistible if you like that sort of thing (which I do). So that’s it, ladies and gentlemen (and others who do not so identify). What a year! Well, a few scrunched-up pandemic-afflicted months actually. Sadly, though, in the past few weeks I’ve once again been going out to gigs more or less thinking, “this could be the last one before it’s all closed down again”. It’s ain’t a pleasant situation. But hey, whatcha gonna do? Here’s hoping for fewer Covid infections and plenty more good gigs during 2022. As No10 might say, let's party and be damned …