Melt Yourself Down at the Lexington

In the sort of place where the loos have as much reading material as the free magazines by the bar, Melt Yourself Down bring their particular brand of dystopian jazz groove to an ecstatic crowd. Whilst jazz is not usually a genre of music associated with mosh pits, there is pogoing here tonight.

The London-based six-piece create music that mixes jazz, punk, Afrobeat and the lead singer’s Mauritan heritage, to name just a few influences. Every player gives their all tonight, especially Pete Wareham on sax. Singer Kushal Gaya is a frontman on a mission to whip the crowd into as much of a frenzy as he can – high kicking, stomping, gesturing, scatting in French Creole and shoving his head in between the two saxophones to better enjoy their sound. During one number, he climbs into the crowd and some lose sight of him. “Where’s he gone?” asks a girl. “On the floor,” her friend replies, and they both laugh. It’s not possible to see him from the angle but it’s enough to imagine the rock writhing that is happening.

The music has a tribal, pulsating element, raucous and percussive. With two saxophones, two drum kits, bass and samples, it’s an almighty sound; songs pulsate to a crescendo and then devolve into artful cacophony. The show opens with You Are Enough and rattles through intergalactic stomps, a soca-influenced Jump the Fire and the hypnotic Mauritian-influenced deep groves of Bharat Mata. Most of the tracks are taken from the group’s critically acclaimed second album, Last Evenings on Earth, which winds globetrotting influences together with the heat of London in the summer time.

Melt Yourself Down ends the set with new material – powerful new single Boots and Spleen – and a sax rave on a Wednesday night in Pentonville Road is successfully created.

Jessica Wall
Photos: Mike Garnell

For further information and future events visit Melt Yourself Down’s website here.

Watch the video for Jump the Fire here: