08 | EXPOSURE FEATURE
Describing Inc.A’s sound seems like a daunting task at first, but there’s an easy way to do it. As it turns out, you can pretty much pick any three disparate musical genres, throw them together, and whatever you end up with, well, that’s what Inc.A sound like. You might come out with ‘world-jazz-drum ‘n’ bass’ or ‘Eastern European-classicaldance-’, and both would be entirely appropriate, because Inc.A’s sound is just as mad and mixed up as the costumes they wear playing live.
Words by: Joel Dear Photo by: Yuko Perry
INC.A Incidentally, if you haven’t seen Inc.A live yet, then make sure that you do as soon as possible. You’ll thank yourself the moment they arrive onstage, clad in an impossible array of hats, masks, and whatever else they’ve pulled out of the attic that day. One of them even wears a suit of armour, presumably because he lost some sort of bet. And then they’ll start playing, and as enthralling as they are visually, it’s the music that really sets them apart. At last count, there are seven members of Inc.A: a drummer, a bassist, a violinist, a cellist, and a three-person dance troupe who are also, conveniently enough, pretty handy with brass instruments. When they squeeze onto a stage, the sound they make is enough to twist even the most aloof of gig-goers to their will. The pick-any-three-genres thing may have been something of an exaggeration (‘electronic-opera-rap’, for instance, is a bit of a stretch) but whatever bucket they’re pulling their influences from is still remarkably deep. The grooves that the band base their songs around are often as bouncy as anything the 70s ever produced, but when the brass and strings get involved it starts to sound rather military. Which is probably intentional, given that half of them dress like high-ranking Soviet officers and instruct their audience to APRIL along while they play. Getting the audience moving is a big part of the Inc.A manifesto, but while they would probably be fine with being called dance music, they seem to have decided long ago that computers are for wimps. They are proper musicians with proper instruments; goodness knows how they keep all of these tightly plotted orchestral parts sounding so loose and danceable, but they manage it and it sounds great. In some ways, they’re doing for dance music what Bellowhead have done for folk, jazzing it up and making it sound big enough to conquer a mid-sized country. JDE
incawales.co.uk
APRIL 2012 | www.themmp.tv