Koloto and Ekoda Map

Club Burrito, Canterbury
8th March 2014

Cocos Lovers, Arlet and Famous James and the (New) Monsters were playing at St. Mary's church in Sandwich that night, a big night organised by Cocos as an attempt to raise the funds for their imminent trip to SXSW in the USA. I was offered a lift (the last train back from Sandwich isn't quite late enough), but it fell through due to a communication breakdown. But I wasn't disappointed, because going to Sandwich involved missing this.

Koloto (Maria) and Ekoda Map (her partner Tom) are soon to be parents, so this may be the last chance to see them play live together for a while. I saw a Koloto set just after getting back from NZ, but being jetlagged, ill and squashed in a noisy pub it wasn't the ideal listening experience. This was a much improved environment, and a very enjoyable social scene too. Club Burrito didn't sound too promising as a venue name, but turned out to be a really groovy little space (Mexican fast food bar downstairs, art installations involving religious kitchiness and wrestling masks, rough wooden benches and space for DJs/musicians upstairs). And they've got their social media mojo working, too:

Wehtam Yelthgiek (yeah, it's his name spelled backwards...sounds better than 'Wehttam Sniktaw', doesn't it?!) also played a laptop-based set, although it didn't make too much on an impression on me. It was one of those situations where there's electronic music playing and you can't tell if the person is still setting up or has started their set! Tom's set followed, also using an Akai MPD26 like Maria, but in a less percussive way. Speaking to him recently, I was impressed to learn that he's making all of his tunes on a ten-year old Toshiba laptop (also involved in his live setup). Maria's set was quite short, just the five tunes from her Mechanica EP, I think. As with the last set I saw her play, people watching who hadn't heard these tunes before were clearly blown away by their intricacy and inventiveness. Apparently there's an Ekoda Map EP in the pipeline, and more joint gigs to come. It'd be nice to see them really develop this, with visual projections, etc. (having seen The Orb live last autumn, I now see the potential for live, purely electronic music).