Psydoll
The Glebe, Stoke On Trent
Saturday October 20 2007

Sport has the nation in its grip, it seems. Tonight, there's some sort of big rugby match taking place - you'll forgive me if I don't give details, I don't do rugby - and as a result, every pub in Stoke On Trent is rammed with rampant rugger buggers, knocking back the beers and bellowing incoherently at oversized TV screens.

Every pub? Well, no, not quite. One hostelry holds out against the hollering hordes. The Glebe is an oasis of - well, I wouldn't say calm, exactly, because with live music seven nights a week it's probably the noisiest pub in town.

But tonight it's the only boozer to resist the rugger buggers as the Devil's Toybox crew give the good people of Stoke an alternative entertainment option. And you can't get more alternative than Tokyo's surrealist cyberpunks, the mighty Psydoll.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the third time Psydoll have visited the UK. Each time their tours get bigger. This time they're on an eight-date blast around an assortment of UK pubs and clubs, which is a pretty good schedule for an independent band which has travelled all the way from Japan. I know many UK-based bands which don't tour that extensively.

But - and here comes the silly bit - Psydoll have never played in the southern part of the UK. In fact, tonight's gig here in Stoke On Trent is the furthest south they've ever been. Certainly it's the closest gig they've ever played to London, and they're still 160 miles away.

I'm sure this odd situation is not because Psydoll don't want to play London. I dare say they'd jump at the chance to play anywhere. It's simply that the band, based as they are in Japan, have limited UK contacts and little in the way of information about likely promoters, venues, and gig opportunities that might exist daaahn saaarf. Meanwhile, promoters and venues who might be up for a Psydoll show know nothing about the band. Result: a distinct gap in the tour itinerary.

It's not a unique problem, and not an insoluble problem, either. A little promotion lotion could quite easily grease the wheels. But without that essential communication in place, getting a foot in the door isn't easy. And that is the reason we've come to Stoke On Trent. Because if Psydoll can't come down here, we'll just have to go up there.

So, here we are, in the stripped-out surroundings of the Glebe. Bare floorboards and a big PA - the essential ingredients of a no-shit gig venue. There is a low stage, and on that stage we find three Psydolls: Nekoi on vocals and portable keyboard, Ucci, who touts a guitar and a goggles 'n' mask outfit like a trans-dimensional motorcyclist, and Loveless on drum (yep, just the one), theremin and assorted electronics.

Not, then your usual rock 'n' roll band, but that is the beauty and genius and appeal of Psydoll - an appeal which I sometimes wonder if the band themselves are really aware of. They're so delightfully, gloriously, weird.

Psydoll don't just rip up the rule book. It never occurred to them that there was a rule book in the first place. Their ideas beam directly from their brains to their instruments with barely a tip of the hat to the rest of the musical world.

And yet, while Psydoll certainly kick up an exhilaratingly raucous racket, in their own strange way they're at home to Mister Pop Song, too. One minute they're knocking you flat with a sonic bulldozer, and the next minute they've surprised you with a lilting tune you can whistle. Sometimes, they do all this in one song, and make it all seem natural and unforced even as they effortlessy pull shapes from the air and tunes from the technology.

With Ucchi lurching to and fro like someone's stuffed a metronome up his coat, and Loveless making strange, jerky leaps on every beat, as if someone's electrified the floor and he's taking 240 volts through his toes, Psydoll seem like gleefully malfunctioning robots as they rattle and thrum through their repertoire. The theremin wails like dead things in the circuitry, and the guitar clatters its way in like dented sheets of stainless steel being thrown against concrete.

It's as if Psydoll found their inspiration and their instruments in a junk pile at the bottom of a lift shaft in the Tyrell Building: cyberpunk meets cyberjunk, and all held together by sheer force of will. But it's Nekoi, out front with her mini keyboard, who adds the essential dollop of pop sensibility, the disarming charm which lifts Psydoll far above the ranks of frowny, shouty, the-apocalypse-is-upon-us industrial hordes. She's the humanity at the heart of the machine, an unexpected pop star amid the nuts and bolts and zeroes and ones.

It's a long way from Tokyo to Stoke On Trent, and there's more distance still between plain old reality and the cybercity in Psydoll's heads. But I'm glad they've made the trip.

Essential links:

Psydoll: Website | MySpace

The Glebe: MySpace