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This recent gig by Zoviet France was a curiosity and the second time I had seen the band perform. Following their contribution to the Marconi Point compilation a couple of years which was to raise funds for the Edinburgh based ACE organisation, the band now put on a fund raising live performance. Given the connections of the organisation this event took place in a back packers hostel, cunningly called The Back Packers - entry to the bar in the hostel was free, with a bucket coming round for contributions to ACE. There was a support band for the night, but they were a token rock band that did nothing interesting and didn't have anything to do with Zoviet France or how the event was advertised.

The last time I saw Zoviet was a few years ago, it was the back room of a pub - but a decent sized and pleasant room and everyone was there to see them. With that everyone for the most part was getting into the music and focussed on that. This time was different. The audience was mixed, residents from the hostel, random locals, friends of the support band, people from the organisation the event was for and a handful of people who actually knew Zoviet France. This meant that there was a fair amount of disinterest shown towards the band, and having been advertised as a "punk" gig to a degree there were one or two moments of hostility towards the band (which they probably were unaware of). Given the talking and disinterest amongst the audience the show wasn't the easiest to get into, fraught with constant distraction.

As with the last time I saw Zoviet a fair amount of their set was drifting bass ambient, which had had everyone sitting with their eyes closed before. This time included more beats than I remember, going for a light techno influence on the sound, which reminded of the recent biosphere gig in some ways. Along with that there were elements of minimal glitch works - pops and clicks worked in to the whole. Overall the set was nice, flowing well for the most part, though at one point there was a sudden silence having reached a climax from which they awkwardly rebuilt for a final few minutes. An enjoyable show, but the environment did it no favours at all.

RVWR: PTR
June 2001