*Shepherd's Bush Empire, London*
The genre-hopping songwriter meanders through trippy funk, with a dose of acid-prog thrown in
• Connan the contrarian – Ben Arnold meets the psych-funk New Zealander
• Read a review of Mockasin's album Caramel
In an increasingly homogeneous music world, it's great that Connan Mockasin exists. A stranger to the major-label strategy and the focus group, this quixotic New Zealand singer and guitarist has patently taken on Adam Ant's axiom that ridicule is nothing to be afraid of.
The Syd Barrett-like songwriter recorded 2013's Caramel, his second album, alone in a hotel room in Tokyo. It purports to be a concept album about a love affair between a man and a dolphin that ends in a tragic car crash, rendered via luscious, glutinous funk fed through a stoned psychedelic wringer.
Live and backed by a four-piece band, the diminutive Mockasin is a leather-jacketed elf with his face hidden beneath a peroxide mop top. Most of his trippy songs meander nowhere much at a glacial pace. The wafty Do I Make You Feel Shy? could be a Prince single spun at 33rpm, although Mockasin appears less likely to prove a voraciously carnal lover than to fall asleep on the job.
If there is a fault, it's that his songs can be slight and insubstantial. I'm the Man, That Will Find You boasts a killer melody that could be prime Isaac Hayes-style blaxploitation funk, but is just the mere outline of a song, yet to be fleshed out. An inveterate genre-hopper, Mockasin then lopes into a bizarre exercise in acid-prog with Megumi the Milkway Above.
He reappears in a kimono to vibrate his windpipe through an encore of I Wanna Roll With You, essentially Barry White reincarnated as a fey pixie, and the 10-minute motorik wig-out of Forever Dolphin Love. It's a long, strange trip, made oddly endearing by the fact that Connan Mockasin appears to have little idea where he is heading.
• Did you catch this gig – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #Iwasthere
Rating: 3/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.
The genre-hopping songwriter meanders through trippy funk, with a dose of acid-prog thrown in
• Connan the contrarian – Ben Arnold meets the psych-funk New Zealander
• Read a review of Mockasin's album Caramel
In an increasingly homogeneous music world, it's great that Connan Mockasin exists. A stranger to the major-label strategy and the focus group, this quixotic New Zealand singer and guitarist has patently taken on Adam Ant's axiom that ridicule is nothing to be afraid of.
The Syd Barrett-like songwriter recorded 2013's Caramel, his second album, alone in a hotel room in Tokyo. It purports to be a concept album about a love affair between a man and a dolphin that ends in a tragic car crash, rendered via luscious, glutinous funk fed through a stoned psychedelic wringer.
Live and backed by a four-piece band, the diminutive Mockasin is a leather-jacketed elf with his face hidden beneath a peroxide mop top. Most of his trippy songs meander nowhere much at a glacial pace. The wafty Do I Make You Feel Shy? could be a Prince single spun at 33rpm, although Mockasin appears less likely to prove a voraciously carnal lover than to fall asleep on the job.
If there is a fault, it's that his songs can be slight and insubstantial. I'm the Man, That Will Find You boasts a killer melody that could be prime Isaac Hayes-style blaxploitation funk, but is just the mere outline of a song, yet to be fleshed out. An inveterate genre-hopper, Mockasin then lopes into a bizarre exercise in acid-prog with Megumi the Milkway Above.
He reappears in a kimono to vibrate his windpipe through an encore of I Wanna Roll With You, essentially Barry White reincarnated as a fey pixie, and the 10-minute motorik wig-out of Forever Dolphin Love. It's a long, strange trip, made oddly endearing by the fact that Connan Mockasin appears to have little idea where he is heading.
• Did you catch this gig – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #Iwasthere
Rating: 3/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.