Emariamhe on Klein + Angel Gray @ ICA.

Emariamhe writes for us as both performer and reporter from Klein's performance last month at the ICA, which was supported by Angel Gray - who jawnino talks about in this interview for Hollywood Superstar Review at EXIT, Glasgow.

We just want to know, why does the ICA soundsystem suck so much?

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“We love you Klein!” a fan shouts. “God loves you too,” she replies. A descent. At times, moments of pure white clarity. The distortion resounds and it creeps all the way up through my toes.

At one point, figures surface onstage, taking shape against the smoke. A girl frantic on the phone. Boys doing balloons. Girls taking selfies. A man taking in the glory. My cue, a flurry of camera shutters. I’m right up there with them. Each character, so preoccupied with theirits own story, paints a larger picture of discordance.

Cheers, hollers, applause. I look towards the crowd: I find them expectant, willing. Klein bounds onto the stage, stepping up to the hype. Twirling and posing, she is spectacle. I return to the audience, she enters into a domestic. The trouble dissipates, and she’s left lonesome once again.

Back on the ground, I observe Klein at work. Concocting loops, she plays a Nollywood-esque synth. The kind that signals trouble. It distorts itself beyond recognition. “See it here,” she echoes. Or is it, “seek it?” She blows a whistle periodically, as if we should be alert to something. What is to come?

She sparks up. Delightfully punk in this institutional context. Clouds of smoke billow, subduing the light. The sound gets contact high, rounding it all out with glimpses of ambient. Electric, acoustic, found, live — it all grinds to a halt. “See you at the Oscars!”, and she’s gone.