Robocobra Quartet rock out at Green Man

Dangerously beginning their Green Man festival set just before the headlining Friday night Kraftwerk show, Robocobra Quartet promise not to overrun, and indeed intend to down their own axes as soon as that particular spectacle begins. Besides the Mountain Stage grandeur in the Brecon Beacons, there’s the adjacent Rising platform, just across a small pond, on a rolling hill, and dedicated to freshly discovered talent. Actually, the Robocobras, from Belfast, are probably one of the highest profile ‘newcomers’ on show at this Welsh weekender, having already generated a good amount of interest around the jazz scene.

Robocobra’s distinctiveness starts with the dominant presence of drummer Chris W. Ryan, mathematically funky on the kit, while delivering knuckle-dusting vocals that are narrated with a poetically tuneful resonance. Ryan’s joint sticks-and-throat combination certainly aids in the precise linking of dark-toned words and slicing beats. His cohorts paint with electric bass, tenor saxophone and electronics, the latter opening with introversion, gradually increasing their harshly rending presence. All four players lock into a composite complexity, navigating tricky parts, but always touched by belligerent madness. Frequently, outfits with talker-singers tend to tire the ears, particularly once their compositions become familiar, but Ryan manages to infuse his rants with an in-the-moment passion that, if not improvised, is exercised afresh each time Robocobra unwinds on stage. Ofttimes, it’s unclear where a hard distortion might originate, given that the bass and tenor are regularly filtered through effects, besides the boxes of gear tinkered with by Ryan Burrowes, along with his percussion and mini-keyboard additions. As the end nears, tenorman Thibault Barillon becomes increasingly raw in his horn-crying.

Two days later, your scribe had just caught the beguiling Mountain Stage set by Birmingham folk troubadour Katherine Priddy, and was treading past the Rising stage once again. His ears were alerted by the sound of garage guitars, so he was promptly diverted to witness the completely unfamiliar M(h)aol, another combo from Ireland, this time from Dublin. Their ragged, chaotic, distorted attack is rooted in the early punk of The Stooges, and their vocalist Róisín Nic Ghearailt possesses a heightened onstage personality and prowess. M(h)aol have distorted thorns scattering out from their axes, revelling in an unpredictable tension.

The festival was stronger this year on jazz acts, as it was also more populated than usual by African bands, sometimes with the two coinciding: the Balimaya Project, and a powerful mini-fest of Afrobeat outfits, with Tamar Osborn adding her baritone saxophone weight to the most exciting horn section blasts. Soccer 96 were taking a break from Shabaka Hutchings, who usually makes them The Comet Is Coming. Improvising harpster Rhodri Davies and roots blues-jazzer Valerie June also appeared. And let’s watch out for KEG, from Brighton, who surely don’t know which genre to grab. Another chance encounter, as they were playing a short set at the festival record store, again mixing ‘lively’ dishevelment with precision ‘charts’, their trombone and synthesiser blubbering doubtless heard from Captain Beefheart.

Robocobra Quartet continue their European tour until early November...