Review: IVORYSERFS – Nottingham Contemporary

It’s a very exciting line-up at the Nottingham Contemporary tonight. I’ve got a sophisticated (?) Beck’s in hand and there are three bands to get stuck into.  So, who are tonight’s exhibits?

Opener CROSA ROSA at first appear a little misjudged as an opener, considering that they perhaps hint to the casual listener that the night will become a celebration of trashy 90s grunge, which it isn’t. This slight misleading aside, and despite a couple of technical hitches – which are glossed over well, to be fair – their compact set is delivered with a scuzzy conviction and obvious passion that sees the crowd largely appreciative, with Joe Weatherall’s effect-laden guitar the standout element. There’s definitely room for refinement, but the band are disarmingly young – one can start with passion and ideas and build on this, but if they start polished but lifeless there’s little to be done. So, Crosa Rosa: promising but a work in progress.

The Contemporary starts to fill up more before second act Field Studies to take the stage. Their set confirms my (positive) suspicions that this will be a night of Nottingham music worth remembering.

FIELD STUDIES’ style is extremely tight atmospheric rock, carefully, intricately structured, with guitar and vocal melodies (and harmonies) that wind together almost subliminally, creating something, ethereal and essential, chilling and heart-warming in equal measure. Lead singer Chris Bailey’s vocal performance is in fact an obvious highlight of the evening; not only technically accomplished but also searing with emotion. ‘Hibernate’ from their first EP is undoubtedly their best song.

Although my exposure to Field Studies has me finding a new Nottingham favourite, I’ve seen IVORYSERFS twice under their previous moniker – Great British Weather. The scary thing is the potential on display – each time I’ve seen them, tonight included, they have improved by orders of magnitude. They have always had infectious enthusiasm, but their set tonight has been honed greatly. Song structures are cleverer, for one.  New song (for which we are apparently the ‘guinea pigs’) ‘Sludgy Days’ (?) is brimming with existential menacethat builds to a math-rock influenced crescendo, while personal favourites‘ Poppies and Vines’ and ‘Cooling Towers’ are full of hazy chimes, arriving and departing like half-remembered dreams.  And it all works together. Their sound is difficult to describe – Andrew Tucker’s voice can be tuneful but also encompasses an off-kilter, magnetic drawl. I pick up a mini book of lyrics afterwards and they are really rather good, if surreal and a little mystifying in parts.

The thing to take away from tonight, I think to myself, is the contrast on display. Field Studies and IVORYSERFS are both brilliant, alike yet disparate. Where Field Studies are glacially cool on stage, IVORYSERFS seem filled with electricity, each member seemingly failing to control perennial excitement. FS’s more quiet moments are more entrancing, where IS’s delivery of highs is more thrilling. Both have great lyricism on display (from what I hear of Field Studies’).  Surely it’s fantastic that the Nottingham scene is not defined by ‘A Sound’ or ‘A Look’ but by the quality of its constituents. I can only hope that this is the beginning of the second wave of the Nottingham success story, but for the time being? Tonight was the story of the Nottingham scene as it is now – youthful (every performer tonight was under the age of 21, possibly 20, as far as I can glean from social media), vibrant, clever and varied. More please.

Review by Dan Hassall