I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 20, 2023] Igorrr

I bought tickets to this show back in December–I was really really looking forward to seeing Igorrr after reading about his live shows.  I thought that I had missed him a few years back–he was supposed to tour with ministry but left the tour before coming to the States.  So I don’t really see any evidence of him having played Philly since like 2018.

But I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity.

Igorrr is the creation of French musician Gautier Serre.  He mashes up genres in a crazy quilt of styles which often changes every few seconds.  He has a base of heavy metal but he throws in hip hot, break beats, classical and opera–it’s thrilling and confusing.  I loved his album Savage Sinusoid which Metal Injection gave a perfect 10/10 score, and named it the “Batshit Crazy Album of the Year.”

The follow up, Spirituality and Distortion focused more on the metal component of his repertoire.  Sinusoid was heavy mostly because it was so erratic and there were heavy components thrown in.  But Spirituality is a heavy metal record–with Igorrrr elements like baroque music, harpsichord and Middle Eastern melodies floating around and between the heaviness.

When Melt Banana cleared off their gear, all that was left was a table and a drumset.   So when Serre came out and started doing some amazing splicing and breaking up of sounds, I thought for a short time that the whole show was going to be this.  And that was cool.  I enjoyed watching him (in the moody light) manipulate sounds and create the wacky composition that is “Paranoid Bulldozer Italiano.” 

But soon enough the band strolled out.  Guitarist Martyn Clément stood in front of me looking very intense, drummer Sylvain Bouvier was in the back and was amazing.  And then out came singer JB Le Bail whose face was painted black with a silver stripe down the center of his face.  Wow, was that intense.  And he screamed.  And screamed.  And if the internet is to be believed the vocals are in a made-up language, basically constructed of phonemes that sound beautiful together.

Even when mezzo-soprano Marthe Alexandre came out and sang her beautiful, haunting high notes.   (Bassist Erlend Caspersen was not on stage with them for whatever reason).

While I Was hoping for a bit more of the cut and paste, this was primarily a metal show.  This makes sense since it is the Spirituality and Distortion tour.  So the first half of the show was all songs from the new album.

“Nervous Waltz” started with lovely baroque violin (which Serre plays on his machines) and then the big metal drums kick in.  Alexandre added layered vocals making it sound traditionally classical until the heavy guitar and funky bass were thrown in.  It’s a wild composition.  Especially when the double bass drum thumping comes in half way through.

It was cool watching Martyn Clément play these heavy chords and solos.

“Downgrade Desert and “Camel Dancefloor” introduced and emphasized the Middle Eastern ingredients.  It was fascinating how well the operatic vocals worked with the chanting and screaming.   I enjoyed watching Clément play the Middle Eastern riffs on his guitar–not what expected at all.

After the intense “Parpaing,” and “Polyphonic Rust” they switched to playing a couple of songs from Sinusoid.

They were rather different with different vocalists than on the record.  But Le Bail did all of the fast screams that are on the record (just a few octaves lower).  I loved t he way Serre manipulated his vocals on the fly, so I could see Le Bail screaming, but Serre was chopping up the sound, which rather messed with your head.  There’s a few “down” moments in “Opus Brain” which allowed Clément to hype the crowd up before the songs slows to a beautiful acoustic guitar melody and Alexandre her soaring vocals.

I also had no idea how long this show would be.  It could have gone on forever.   But the final song, with a cool drum intro from Bouvier, returned to Spirituality for “Himalaya Massive Ritual.”  I was blown away by how great all of the voices joining together in the background sounded with Alexandre’s high notes.

The band left for a break and then came back for a fun encore of the wacky Cheval.  The only thing that would have made it better is if all of the musicians from the record could have played it live (logistically impossible), but it was still fun to hear the accordion and watch everyone dance to the traditional song

The awesomely named “Apopathodiaphulatophobie” followed and then everyone left the stage except Serre and he amazed us with a solo rendition of “Very Noise.”  Watching him as he cut up and mashed together these strange noises, even air drumming some of the notes was really great.    And even though I enjoyed the band a lot, I could have used a little more of just Serre.

Everyone in the band seemed so intense that it was funny at the end of the night to have Serre cut up a version of Happy Birthday for Alexandre as she blushed at the front of the stage.

And on the way out, I ran in to Clément  and he was super friendly.

Sometimes a build up can lead to disappointment, but not this time.  I would absolutely see this spectacle again. Maybe from slightly further back so I could take in the whole stage and Igorrr’s personalized light show.

1. Paranoid Bulldozer Italiano  §
2. Hollow Tree §
3. Nervous Waltz §
4. Downgrade Desert §
5. Camel Dancefloor §
6. Parpaing §
7. Polyphonic Rust §
8. Viande ♣
9. Opus Brain ♣
10. Himalaya Massive Ritual §
    encore
11. Cheval ♣
12. Apopathodiaphulatophobie ♣
13. Very Noise §
14. happy birthday (remix) *(it was Marthe Alexandre’s birthday and Gautier Serre played a chopped up version of the song for her)

§ Spirituality and Distortion (2020)
♣ Savage Sinusoid (2017)