MikePadgett.com

Matthew Herbert Big Band

— A right Herbert: but sounds as original as these should be cherished.”

After an awkward warm-up from studenty noodlers Wixel, who might be the Flemish answer to Sigur Rós, the stage of Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique was quickly cleared and rearranged for the main event of the evening. Matthew Herbert, renowned for the idiosyncratic music he records under a schizophrenic array of monikers, led on his jazz band and calmly started to work his electronic equipment.

Herbert comes across live as something like a cross between Charlie Chaplin, John Cazale and Doctor Frankenstein. At times, he tricks his audience into thinking he has little control over the output of his machines, but this is pure modesty, given the extraordinary task he sets himself. For, as his band hops smoothly through jazz numbers led by quirky singer Eska, Herbert limits himself to sampling only what is played by them.

The contrast between buzzing, grating feedback and rich brass ought to have been more than a little painful, but the odds between these two unusual bedfellows were evened by Eska’s marvellous voice. Herbert’s past work with Björk is analogous.

So if some spectators seemed rather bemused at first by Herbert’s noisy and very occasionally jarring trickery, the obvious bonhomie among the players was endearing and the head of steam gathered by each track could have left no-one in any doubt that this had been a fascinating display of twenty-first century cabaret.