Akasha at The Bread and Roses - bringing the love magick back to SW4

For every entry  published on this blog, another 10 or 12 are left to rot in the drafts folder. But I'm going to publish this one, because this semi-local band playing at a local pub gave me more pleasure in one brief free gig than I've had at any music venue in years.

Among dozens of unpublished blog pieces gatheirng dust in the vaults of this site are several about gigs at The Bread and Roses pub in Clapham Manor Street. It sometimes feels like an unappreciated SW4 treasure, this trades-union-run pub.  I've several times been to their free music nights to find the audience almost outnumbered by band members.

But not last Saturday evening, which belonged to a band from the Brixton area named Akasha,  whose performance left me eager for more, buzzing with that strange energy you get from great music - and also kicking myself for not having followed their every gig for the past 20 years or so. There was a good crowd, and at least half were dancing wildly by the end - well, some of us were at least shuffling from foot to foot.

Akasha (a name they share with a few others, being the sanskrit word for "air" or  "aether") started in  1994 as a duo, Charlie Casey and Damian Hand, but have now grown into the seven -piece band which crammed the small pub stage last week.

The band was a pioneer of  jazzy, electronics-infused, spaced-out hip-hop fusion style which was emerging back in the early 1990s, and became the signature sound of the highly influential Wall of Sound label.  Some called it trip-hop...but the music was much too diverse and agile to get trapped in such a name.

The two originals - Casey on guitar, vocals and MacBook Pro,  Damian Hands a sort of new-age Roland Kirk on all manner of reeds and deeds and woodwinds - were backed up by a rock-steady demon of a drummer, a fabulously 70s-looking keyboards player, and solid trumpet, bass and alto sax players.

The sound system wasn't really up to such an adventurous band - and it took about half an hour of the engineer traipsing between stage and mixing desk to get things right. But once they got going, the gates to a new musical heaven opened in the skies over southwest London. Well, that's how it seemed to me, and I wasn't even on anything, apart from Guinness.

Akasha's music is catchy, exciting, incredibly danceable, unpredictable and mind-blowing at times, risk-taking (or so it seems); and it has that magic ingredient - wit. No wonder they were such a big influence on loads of their more commercially-minded label-mates (whatever happened to the Propellerheads?)

No wonder that so many big names wanted to work with them - and many did, notably Neneh Cherry, the true godmother to all this jazz-hip-hop-punk-funk crossover stuff. I've never got over seeing  her fronting Rip Rig & Panic under the Westway back in about 1983. And also Sarah Cracknell of St Etienne and the guy from Faithless - Maxi Jazz - who, coming from a similar milieu, had all the worldly success that eluded this band. But Akasha has the sort of success that others long  for - they're still loved and respected by their original fans, and winning new followers with every set they play, worldwide.

This night, Akasha played plenty of their old favourites, ratching up the involuntary dance factor with each number. I listened very hard when they played a song about their musical influences - but the vocals were drowned a bit by the poor PA. At a guess I'd say they would go for James Brown, Miles Davis, maybe Charlie Parker, Roland Kirk, maybe the Sugarhill Gang, maybe Curtis Mayfield or maybe Stockhausen? Herbie Hancock? Coltrane? Gil Scott Heron?

So, will have to go to next gig and hope they play it again. Also, buy the CDs. Next gig? One of the band said they were playing the Railway Tavern in Tulse Hill sometime soon. I think. Go!