Black Abba played at Yes Way in Peckham. They emerged as masked horrors from a nightmare wood, constructing pagan-drone soundscapes that captivate and lift towards transcendence. Two drummers were in appearance due to a broken wrist, the sling adding a certain something to procedings. A sock-stuffed cello tears relentlessly through the swathes of layered noise, with an acoustic guitar providing much mortar for the wall of sound. When the pace softens and the pressure eases, a crushing silence ensues, before being dissected as it all builds up again. Black Abba don’t play songs in the traditional sense, but exist as one heaving organic mass bleeding into the space around, shaking the foundations of the building. They are an injection direct into the spinal cord,
and in a two song set manage to provoke ecstasy and nausea in equal measure. Time stood still.