On 10th April 2010 was the 11th Gotham Festival run by alternative promotions company “Flag Promotions“. This year’s Venue was the Islington Academy in London which was ideal location especially for the after party at the Electrowerkz (Slimelight).

The Opening Bands – Were Legion and Until I Wake which due to the combination of a late morning and an outfit crisis, I managed to miss. However, as I arrived I bumped into some friends whose general opinions were that they weren’t that keen on either performance.

As I arrived at the venue, Ambient Trip Hop ensemble Greenhaus were on stage.

Pheonix J of Greenhaus

Singer Phoenix J sings with a passion and a drama that makes you suspect that she writes lyrics about matters close to her heart. Her jazzy vocals have a beautiful richness to them as well as having a somewhat haunting quality. The rest of the band are very solid, tight and professional and the general performance was good, if a little flat. However despite the beautiful vocals, as I noted when I last saw them supporting the Crüxshadows, their music doesn’t really do it for me. The music has a repetitive, hypnotic yet unremarkable quality but that can make their sound a little boring.

Their most recent album “You’re Not Alone” is available from Amazon.

Greenhaus performing “Don’t Shoot The Messenger ” at Gotham 11

Rating: 3/5

Next up was AlterRed who definitely kicked the festival up a gear.

VX of AlterRed

The Industrial/EBM troop fuse music with performance art with stunning beautiful Synth/keyboardist Vx performing with a black lace blindfold over her eyes and intriguingly named non-music playing members “The Clockwork Doll” and “The Patient” contributing to the physical part of the art. Their interesting and unusual performance is accompanied by fantastically executed, Depeche Mode influenced music. Vocalist AlterRed has wonderful glam-pop vocals which adds to the unusual sound of the band. The band will be supporting KMFDM on their Wolverhampton, Manchester, Glasgow and London dates and are soon to release their debut album. This band is definitely one to keep your eye on as they deserve to be huge.

AlterRed performing “Broken Glass” at Gotham 11

Rating: 5/5

Rhombus

Frontman Edward Grassby and stand-in Frontwoman Claire

The twin-fronted Goth Rockers had an extremely supportive response from a crowd that was made up of many of their fans. They clearly enjoyed their set which did seem to further fuel the support of the crowd. Rhombus frontman Edward Grassby sings with a Andrew Eldritch tone and the quality of the guitars also give an indication of a Sisters of Mercy influence. The entire set was a good, fun performance but was somewhat affected by flame haired stand-in frontwoman Claire’s vocals being too quiet, seemingly the fault of the sound engineer rather than the vocalist. You can purchase the band’s most recent album “Open the Sky” from Amazon.

Rating 4/5

2nd part coming soon. Releases from the bands mentioned in this blog are also available from the missjade’s alternative music & culture shop.