Dean Blunt @ Jazz Cafe, Camden

So we went to one of the gigs of the year yesterday. The reason Dean Blunt’s ‘Untitled Unmastered Unheard Unplanned Unfinished Unrehearsed Un’ is up there with the best is due to the fact that it defied convention at absolutely every turn.

First, a warm-up setlist dominated by Pearl Jam and Incubus classics took us to a place we haven’t been in a long while. Add to this the fact that when Dean Blunt and his incredibly impressive band (including enigmatic composer Oliver Coates) took to the stage, they did so in pitch blackness and proceeded to play in pitch black throughout.

An hour of darkness, abstract instrumentation and Blunt’s repetitive, chanting:

“And I’d love to know / look at the ice all on my wrist, time froze…”

We were spellbound, everyone was, in a trance almost. The only thing missing were some gongs to complete the meditation.

Blunt disappeared into the night and that was that.