Bo Ningen - Swn Festival 2012 review

An incredible cathedral of noise

Kai Jones - 22 October 2012

This is ridiculous. There’s a bouncer holding up bunting. Six foot of Welsh muscle, topped off with the sternest expression this side of Malcolm Tucker, is currently holding up a twee decoration that spans the stage and criss-crosses the upstairs room of this Cardiff drinking hole.
 
It’s unclear how the bunting started to fall down. It may have been Taigan’s enthusiastic swirling of his bass, the Bo Ningen singer taking swipes at the air around him like a Herculean fly swatter. Or it may have been the crowd’s increasing exuberance; finding themselves torn between being submerged in Bo Ningen’s sonic, Krautrock whirlwind and being pressed against the stage in the corner of this tiny space.
 
Whatever the reason for the detachment of the bunting from its awnings, it’s clearly disturbed this chiselled chap. He stands there, stage right and as proud as can be, his sole mission this evening to stop any bunting falling onto the chaos happening in front of him.
 
It’s a bizarre and beautiful sight, much like Bo Ningen themselves. Four skinny Japanese men, with crow-black hair down to their chests and decked out in flowing silk dresses, Bo Ningen confuse and mesmerise in equal measure. The ferocious onslaught hurtles along at an extreme and seemingly improbable velocity, a throbbing psychedelia churning out hypnotic repetitive riffs and distressed vocals that swirl and wrap around you like the inviting angels of death at the end of Raider of Lost Ark.
 
Faced with this relentless g-force, all the Dempsey’s crowd can do is to free themselves and let the moment envelope them. Only one solitary figure seems oblivious to the incredible cathedral of noise. The Bunting Bouncer.

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