Gig review: Unicorn Kid

Published on Wednesday 17 February 2010 20:00

UNICORN KID *** KING TUT'S, GLASGOW

WERE you to blow up a Unicorn Kid gig, it's likely that the viewing figures for Skins would drop dramatically. Most pop music emphasises some kind of generational split, but the sounds made by Oliver Sabin – a one-man producer of Casiopop electronica from Leith, who recently signed to the Ministry of Sound label – do so to a ridiculous extent. It's no exaggeration to say that anyone over the age of 18 would have felt too old here.

Unicorn Kid should be easy to dismiss as a schoolkids' fad, a novelty concept which will be lucky to last the summer, but somehow it isn't.

Sabin, a clean-cut young guy with a trademark furry hat in the shape of a lion's head and white fluorescent warpaint daubed on his cheeks, has married the bleeping soundtrack of a very early SuperMario game with throbbing house and electro breakdowns. It should be rubbish, but somehow it manages to be very good. Even the sound girl was jumping on the spot at one point.

Hyperactive tracks such as Lion Hat and Wee Monsters come on like Jean Michel Jarre after a Mars bar binge. The audience at Tut's wasn't made up of easily fooled drones either, but the cool kids in school, early adopters going genuinely crazy for a new sound.

Maybe they'll look upon Sabin like Mozart one day, or maybe they'll be embarrassed by the thought of their youthful tastes. Either way, they're all having a load of fun right now.