The Brooklyn Rail

The New Adelphi Club is not even close to being “new,” its history stretching back four decades as a crucial alternative rock club in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and even further back as the Victory Club in 1923. A decade later it became The De Grey Club, and during World War II, Kingston-upon-Hull’s De Grey Street of terraced houses was bombed, an act that later facilitated some degree of soundproofing on the Adelphi premises, as the resultant three flattened houses were turned into an impromptu car park. In 1956, house number 89 was reborn as the Civil Service Sports & Social Club, and in 1978 finally became the Adelphi Club, converting to a weirdsville rock’n’roll haunt in 1984.

The New Adelphi remains lived-in, with a makeshift interior lovingly intact since its recalibration, cultivating a sense of puzzlement when artists turn up to play at what looks like a suburban row of domestic dwellings, entering through a discreet front door. The club was founded by Paul Jackson, who still lingers on the periphery, in attendance at many gigs although technically having handed over the active management to a sympathetic posse of enthusiasts.

One of the recent Adelphi fortieth highlights was provided by the unlikely appearance of one of Belgium’s finest combos, Don Kapot, crashing together no-wave jazz, monomaniac funk, and punk skitter, a trio from Brussels that has been active for around a decade and now risking the hassles of a mini-tour across the fortified borders of Great Britain. Giotis Damianidis oscillates between guitar and bass guitar, according to the needs of pulse or slash attacks. Viktor Perdieus hoists his baritone saxophone, then turns to his micro-keyboard of retro-repetition. Jakob Warmenbol provides scissor drum patterns, snapback springing for the dance floor foundation.

Big in Brussels, the threesome understandably pulled in a smaller clutch on this low-key Tuesday, but the locally rising band Haldern obliged by swelling the ranks with their own followers, a bunch who were noticeably transfixed by the Don Kapot intensity, sticking around for their set and leading the frontal fray with consistently tranced-up (and amusing) moves. This is what the punk-jazz of Kapot requires.

Bass flooded the room with solid black mass, snaking with an elastic bloat, quaking the space. Perdieus shiv-ed up his tiny keys into a Booker T. treble-region, in the “96 Tears” style, offering “a warm hand for the orange column,” which could well be a new tune title. The bassquake got transferred to the keys when Damianidis strapped on his strafing axe, freeing him up for a savage karate-striking of the strings. The bass seeped into the abdomen while the alto saxophone was unveiled, low and high region responsibilities being continually exchanged within the band. “Buskruit” equals gunpowder in Dutch: the baritone crawled out of its deep pit again, looming over an insistent high-guitar riff-let. The dancers got spinning, ridiculously. Perdieus howled in tandem, as this sympathy sliced into a soothing waltz, the dancers adapting swiftly with circus abandonment. Perdieus then undertook a venue walkabout with his tiny wooden flute into the circle of his newfound acolytes. The only way out was a return to baritone, with an unclean bass rub from Diamanidis, like a PiL-ed Jah Wobble obsessional.

Earlier, the emerging Haldern had impressed with their blend of chiming guitars, and their studied disarray of casualness and humor. They combined post rock Slint moves with heavy country spangle, also recalling Crazy Horse, Hüsker Du, and Thin White Rope from back in the 1980s. Though largely instrumental, their partly progged-punk featured occasional vocals. Burning acid lead guitar made scarred interactions with the other pair of axes, dogged drums creeping underneath this slowed wall of strings. One member politely demanded that the audience sit down for the final number, and the small gathering complied. The drummer swapped to bass and the band’s girl-pair sang with quietly altered harmonies and phrasing, soothing to the end. For an outfit clearly close to the opening of their evolution, there were marked signs that Haldern will develop fast, already displaying some canny quirks of individuality.

With much greater experience, Scheißegeld (not German, but local Hull-ians) appeared at the Adelphi a couple of weeks later, specializing in improvised jamming from a rock and electronic foundation. They were augmented by three members of the much newer Hull band bdrmm, and also by Steve Cobby, who is half of (the also local) Fila Brazillia, significant electronic pulsators whose activities span the last three decades.

It was difficult to keep track as the players shifted between guitar and drums, infiltrating each other’s stage-spaces, but the short pieces had the feel of crafted grooves and wordless songs, even though their creation stemmed from a Can-like improvisatory flow. When does free-rock become rock-jamming?

When Cobby became dominant toward the midway point, the axis shifted to an electronic oscillation. Everything seemed doubled: guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, and samplers. Axes psychedel-licked out, decelerating into an anthemic sludge, led by a sobbing guitar solo, and eventually making room for some subtle drone maneuvers. A dragging dub emerged, with circus synth, the nature of the expanded ensemble’s improvisation being a swift switching into differing segments. Then, a rapper hopped up for a fast-form wordy runner, with strafe-guitar riffing, some post-Tina Weymouth bass pumpin’ turning swampy for its dispersal conclusion.

This anniversary of the New Adelphi finds the club continuing to prove its welcome love for on-the-edge sounds, from rock to electronics, jazz to punk, funk to hip hop, and way out there beyond, a peripheral revolution amid the terraced housing outskirts of Hull.