Ut live at Sonic City, November 2017

UT
Live at Rough Trade, London
November 18, 2017

Warped Reality readers will know Ut, the legendary No Wave underground band that formed in New York in 1978. A reminder: Jacqui Ham, Sally Young and Nina Canal were Blast First label mates of Sonic Youth. They left the USA to tour with The Fall (1981), and even more interesting to those comrades who fight for active, not passive, listening daily, a young Steve Albini engineered the 1989 Griller album. Consequently tonight’s Rough Trade audience is made up of a generous portion of the alternative music world’s patrons, champions and groundbreakers, including Ana (Raincoats) and Bjork. Lovely.

Even more adorable is how their loud sound, jazz attitude, building layers of rhythm and awkward guitar shapes still swallow you whole, exemplified most in “Wailhouse” tonight (off Griller), and by which time they’ve warmed up.