A few weeks ago I saw an artist called +44kaligula, opening for a different act I had come to see. I did not expect to be so impressed. It’s very rare to see a musician who is making something truly artful and ambitious and who’s not afraid to mystify the audience.
+44kaligula makes totally evil music. There aren’t many better ways to put it. I don’t mean that it sounded bad, but that it was appealing in a deceitful way, like a siren’s song. They came across as something like an imp or a malicious fairy. I had the impression it was the kind of music that folk tales are designed to warn us against.
Their performance was theatrical. It was reminiscient of David Byrne, with eccentric, puppet-like dancing and the signature suit, and also Bjork, with their well-trained and light voice making lots of yelpy leaps in pitch. Being an electronic art-pop project, their instrumentation was wholly provided by backing tracks, except for one track which was also accompanied by acoustic guitar. They sat on the edge of the stage and idly plucked at the strings, while we heard inhuman entities drifting past, their strange roaring muffled as if by a barrier. It was like they had found a quiet corner of hell to play in.
In the centre of the stage was a wooden pole, adorned with LED strips and with two other pieces of wood crossing through it. They started their act being already draped over it for many minutes. I have no idea what it was supposed to depict, but as they hung off it in various ways throughout the performance, it drifted in my mind between a huge sword stabbed into the ground, the mast of a submerged ship, a dead tree in a wasteland, and even a crucifix.
At the end, they unsheathed a small, dagger-like object from the top of the pole, walked off the stage straight into the parting crowd, and marched, hunched, out of the room.