Gig review: Errors, Glasgow

MY HOW they’ve grown. Having arrived ten years ago with the Hans Herman single on Mogwai’s Rock Action Records – the label that still represents them today with their tremendous fourth album Lease of Life – Glasgow electronica and post-rock colliding three-piece Errors have matured from a group created broadly in their sponsors’ image into one with a towering, expressive and gut-quakingly loud sound all of their own.
Errors, a post-electro band from Glasgow. Picture: Michael KentErrors, a post-electro band from Glasgow. Picture: Michael Kent
Errors, a post-electro band from Glasgow. Picture: Michael Kent

Errors

The Art School, Glasgow

*****

Atmospheric walk-ons don’t come much more proggy than through billowing clouds of dry ice onto a stage decorated with tropical plants while jungle noises play over the PA. But any questions of pretension were quickly pricked by biblically bearded vocalist and guitar/keys player Stephen Livingstone’s funnily awkward patter. “Do you remember us?” he greeted the crowd, referring to how long it’s been since the band last played their hometown. “We used to be a band called Errors.”

With its circling, fluttering synth and sequencer parts, beatific beat and sung topline melody – Livingstone’s heavily treated vocals intertwining with those of guest singer Cecilia Stamp (the group started as instrumentalists) – Slow Rotor typified the way Errors have found light and shade in the spaces between the meaner, more shadowy elements of their modus operandi. Ravey kraut-rocker Genuflection even bore something approaching a sing-along refrain: “How much I lied about it, on our way back home.”

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It gave them room to draw things down to raw basics latterly, as sludgy riff-out Tusk, and especially golden oldie Mr Milk, allowed drummer James Hamilton – his pummeling playing practically a show in itself – license to properly cut loose. Rousing closer Holus Bolus made for a suitably triumphant end to a triumphant homecoming.

Seen on 11.04.15

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