Live: Yo Chomsky!

There is a certain irony in the cyberflurry of words already expended upon a technopop troupe who have decided to enshrine a linguistics professor with their name. Yo Chomsky! have already riled a diet portion of Nottingham's gignoscenti by grabbing a spot at this year's Dot to Dot Festival...tonight was their debut headline, by the way. So, it was very much up to the rabble-riffing, shell-suited showboats to super size their scene presence here. Tonight at The Maze, it seems that a few more followers may have been persuaded to let the glow sticks light the way.

What is easy to say is that Yo Chomsky! certainly offer Nottingham a different night out, especially when compared to endearingly barmy support The Right Friends. Their ADHD skiffle-rock threatens to break the stage and bust the mould, but their spasmodic Spinal Tapping lacks the postmodern edge that Yo! offer. While they may want to 'Fuck the NME', it might have to be a 1982 edition.

Yo!'s approach is less punk and more frenzied spunk... Mother Music is certainly still pregnant with this Rave Romantic clan. However, the evolution of their performance tonight suggests she could well be brewing up a beauty. After the golden shower of glow-sticks, Chomsky! slipped up in more ways than one, but they rode the electro-storm with a brattish snigger rather than a baby's nappy-full. Failing samplers and flooded stages aside, their music stayed afloat and cracked out a time-warp treat. From the musical cradle to the literary grave, a booming T.S Eliot (TONY awards, 1983, yeah?) descended upon rave-up white boy rap. With sweet synth and beatbox mayhem abound, Yo Chomsky! had Picassoed a hectic new sound. From the cradle to the grave and the grave to the rave, Yo Chomsky! are skidding out onto their feet and spinning a delirious break-dance in a bemused midwife's arms.

As their hyperactive Chomsky!-in-Chief admitted, this colourful collective are perhaps one raucous, rousing riff short of charging to experience them... but this is only their second gig! With a myriad mix of lyrical intellect, shameless showmanship and creative tune-craft, surely a bigger stage is on the hype-funk horizon for their anarchic antics to explode upon.

In the words of their supertune-in-waiting, 'I'm watching...'

Photos courtesy of Florence Gohard (c)

Yo Chomsky! played at the Maze on 5th march 2007.

Yo Chomsky! on Myspace

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