Scene and Heard – CCLIII: The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow –  Luke Spillane (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

This is the logical point of destination if you draw a line from the late 80’s Manchester baggy and rave scene, through the birth of affordable technology, 90’s acid house, euro disco and on into the modern age. The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow is a high energy, euphoric musical high, an onslaught of addictive beats and high octane grooves as relentless as it is infectious.

It is built on a beat of fractious urgency, tension and paranoia, where the clinical cold synths of the dance floor are mixed with white hot rock muscle to create a blend of the futuristic and the primordial, the industrial and the elemental, a neon wasteland that leads to oblivion. It also has a brooding presence, far from the euphoric and joyous nature of the uptown club music, it feels as if it has been fashioned from the scattered musical trappings and attitudes that the techno-punks, ravers, misfits and speedfreaks left behind after their bubbles burst and they either went underground or learnt to conform.

I like music that I can’t just hang a simple sound bite or label on, can’t kick into a well defined generic drawer, music that I didn’t see coming. Well, I didn’t see this coming. I feel like I have been run over by rave, experimented on by extra-terrestrials, have stood on the edge of the end of the universe itself, been attacked by cyborgs and had an electronic music shop collapse on me. What a way to spend a morning. And the weird part is…I can’t wait to do it all again.