Live Review : Igorrr + Otto Von Schirach @ Club Academy, Manchester on April 15th 2022

Good Friday? More like unexpectedly muggy Friday, as my CC cream has slid off my face somewhere between Runcorn East and Grand Central. I want to be Queen of the Night  but I am afraid I am more  Rosy Cheeked Dickhead right now. I can't even blame my usual rushing from work, as I've not even been there today. I literally had all fucking day to get ready and still I messed up and forgot my glowsticks.

Glowsticks which I suspect I could have made good use of tonight.

If you like your music with a lovely edge of squeak, bleep, bloop  and WTF, both of tonights sets come from acts on the right side of batshit crazy. There's disco lights and New Order songs as I shuffle into the basement of Club Academy, and I'm weirdly triggered by the memory of my last visit here (Modestep 50 billion years ago).

Opening tonight is the delightful Otto Von Schirach, and for those of you unfamiliar with him or his music, it is utterly insane. All of it. The complete package is madness. I never knew how badly I needed to dance to a dubstep song about dinosaurs, but honestly, I think he has set the bar so unbelievably high for the rest of my night... or life... if i don't feel the dubstep dinosaur joy again I've clearly failed.

Otto is an eclectic character, according to his Wikipedia he’s an American IDM musician  with Cuban and German heritage. IDM is notoriously difficult to dance to given how erratic it can be, but Ottos music still manages to flow joyfully throughout the crowd.

Our audience tonight is a hive of open minded goodness, and our opener has them literally jumping within a minute of the music starting. I am always super appreciative of a good drop and lashings of bass, and this guy is nailing it to perfection. 

Otto sings, raps, bounces, DJs, and death roars, all whilst arguing with his own hand... think Jim Carey in Liar Liar and “The Claw". It really is a spectacle words cannot adequately convey. I think he is my new favourite person in existence, after the one I gave birth to of course.

Stand out tracks include ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth’ which is honestly just a bop and a half, and... well... I don't know, I was dancing too fucking hard to make notes. Whatever. I love this guy. 

Once Otto and his love of  triangles finishes his amazing set, we are soothed with some deeply moving pre Igorrr classical piano. I've started paying attention recently to what music bands play between sets, ever since my nearly teenage daughter started coming to gigs with me and lit up with delight at  hearing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ before her beloved Alestorm... yeah yeah... how do you explain misogyny to a child... I did try. 

The piano pieces are soothing; I could only dream of mastering Chopin, Litsz or Rachmaninoff, I have such a deep adoration for classical. It lulls the audience into a false sense of security and relaxation . 

Igorrr stand firmly at the opposite end of the scale. Avant-Garde, experimental, and just down right weird. I am fondly reminded of my first experience with them at the Metaldays festival in Slovenia. My daughter tugged on my shirt and went “Mummy, what the Hell are we watching” and I was just dead. “I don't know lovely, but mummy likes it” I answered and thus my love for Igorrr was born in that sweaty field in Tolmin. 

Igorrr is the Brainchild of French musician Gautier Serre, fusing an array of different styles  (black metal, baroque , break best... it’s all in there) in a melting pot of uniqueness with crushing harsh roars and soaring ethereal soprano vocals. The final result is an adventurous journey into unknown realms of discovery, and it really is quite a wonderful path to travel.

Perfect examples of what Igorrr do so brilliantly come in the form of the yhe bouncy  ‘Camel Dancefloor’, the theatrical wonder of ‘Polyphonic Rust’ and the chaos of the massive ‘Very Noise’.

Igorrr is very definitely music for the liberated, and tonights gig was something incredibly special and jaw dropping. I was able to truly drink in an atmosphere and an audiences engagement. Everyone is throwing shapes and x stepping and just going a little bit mad, in a spirited carefree and euphoric way. I'm sick of crowd killing at shows, so this was a refreshing change from  those kinds of antics. 

I race through the night towards my train home in a wonderful mood. And with Otto’s Dinosaur tune on my Spotify...