“So, do you know Marconi Union well?,” a fellow gig-goer at West London’s Bush Hall asks me, with a discernible self-satisfaction.
It’s a pride that’s understandable among the Marconi Union fanbase. The combination of the Manchester-based outfit’s acclaimed ambient music and their elusivity (for years, they declined to do most interviews) has created a cultish, if-you-know-you-know mentality around them.
The truth is, with an equal degree of smugness, I responded that I do indeed know them well. For years, the band has topped my Spotify Wrapped on account of their 2012 release, Weightless (Ambient Transmissions Vol. 2).
As its title suggests, this six-track project has the ability to slip you into a feathery trance. And don’t just take that from me: its opening track, dubbed “the world’s most relaxing song”, has been shown to reduce feelings of anxiety by 65%, according to a 2019 study. (Take from that what you will, as to why they’re often my most-streamed artist of the year).
Granted, this might not sound like grounds for a particularly enthralling show, with music designed largely to shut the noise of the world out. But their live set certainly did surprise me, and perhaps even many others among the evening’s devoted congregation.
In fact, a Marconi Union gig isn’t your average show, but feels altogether more ritualistic, as the duo onstage – Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows – weave a world of sparse keys and plodding bass, telling a story with sounds. Far from soothing you to sleep, it stirs the soul.
It helps that the duo’s new album, The Fear of Never Landing, is a far more invigorating ride than the Weightless album they’re most known for – putting them more in the vein of Nils Frahm or Jon Hopkins than any sedative.
The recent project’s composition, the band’s twelfth album, arrived after an existential chapter for Crossley and Meadows, with questions as to whether their particular union would continue. After being commissioned to devise the live score for the skate film Downhill Motion, however, they soon rekindled their creative flames.
In the flesh, you can see how cinema and visuals are intertwined with their work (reminiscent of Mogwai’s sublime cinematic soundtrack for the 2006 documentary Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait), as images slowly shapeshift on the board behind them.
This simple projector slider was perhaps indicative of the show’s one downside. That is, with predominantly lyricless art such as this – aside from the occasional warbling vocoder from Crossley – you only wish you could hear it on an even grander scale, with visuals that were more immersive than on display here.
Regardless of size, however, what we saw appeared like ultrasounds, rising and falling, before morphing into black-and-white Rothkos. At one stage, the room was placed into a burning red light as though having reached Mars, with ominous chords to match. This exploration of sight and sound made for an engrossing trip.
If such a statement sounds somewhat hoity-toity, forgive me. But like our friend earlier, it stems from a reverence for an act like Marconi Union, whose uniqueness is both precious and underappreciated.
So, do you know Marconi Union well? If not, I thoroughly suggest attending one of their shows yourself, to see what all the quiet, ambient fuss is about.
