Mirrors - 12th May

The news that Mumm-Ra’s Noo and Tate were forming a band called Mirrors first leaked out (via Arrow FM’s Oli Townsend) at last year’s Great Escape festival, so it was fitting that the band’s first major live gig was scheduled for this year’s instalment of the music industry’s favourite domestic works-outing.

However, a rare bulletin from Mumm-Ra’s old MySpace at the beginning of the week announced Mirrors were playing a warm-up show at Brighton’s hidden-away New Hero club, a couple of days before their Great Escape slot. My partner & I grabbed the first two tickets from Resident Records that afternoon, and headed over.

New Hero is more often used for weekend 80s revival nights, but occasionally slips the odd exclusive gig in (such as La Roux’s debut back in January). Turning up early on a Tuesday evening, the club was unsurprisingly quiet, with the bar staff desultorily releasing streams of dry ice every now and again, in order to create an atmosphere.

Just as we were expecting the night to be an embarrassing wash-out, New Hero began filling up, very quickly, with dozens of fans of all ages (friends and family too). Despite a slow trickle of press mentions, Mirrors have only had one song publically available on their MySpace, so the whoops and cheers when they finally took to the stage must have been ones of hopeful anticipation. It almost felt like a set-up, for the potential benefit of industry representatives in the crowd.

Here’s the truth though, Mirrors sounded great. Across a short (5 or 6 song) set, the band revealed a catalogue of warm, pristine synthpop songs, indebted (as all synthpop must be) to originators Kraftwerk, but with a healthy influence from some of the best British acts who followed, notably Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

Stood stock-still behind their laptops, smart in dark suits, Mirrors looked the part too. How James New, once one of the region’s most exuberant frontmen, managed to keep himself in one spot is a mystery. Behind him, Tate seemed to be struggling with the enforced rigidity at his keyboard, sometimes mouthing the lyrics, sometimes stifling a yawn. The other two band members (familiar, but I couldn’t place them) added vocals, laptop and synth-drums, equally motionless in the darkness, lit only occasionally by the back-projected video clips.

Within half an hour they were gone, to huge cheers, and one optimistic request for Mumm-Ra’s ancient 5/4. There was no encore, as the pre-gig tapes of choice electronica (Eno etc) rolled again.

We headed on to a Spirit Of Gravity night at the Komedia, where Rephlex artist Ceephax was carrying-out his own electropop revival, with a twisted DJ set of Tubeway Army and Giorgio Moroder classics. It was a seamless transition.

Mirrors are reintroducing the pop to the beat that don’t stop.

8/10