It seems unlikely that anyone has ever wondered what would happen if you took the music of John Zorn, early Carcass, 100 gecs, Mr. Bungle, Four Tet, Anal Cunt, 70s game show theme tunes and children’s party music, put it all into the bodies of a pair of men dressed as clowns –one with a drumkit, one with a saxophone, both with keyboards –and let said men loose in apop-up tent erected on the stage of London’s 2,300-capacity Kentish Town Forum while videos of raw meat, human innards, porn stars and dogs having sex play behind them. But, just on the off-chance, Clown Core have answered that very specific question. Tonight is comfortably the weirdest gig of 2023… probably the entire decade… potentially the millennium… made even more confusing by the fact that the not sold out but still impressively busy Forum seems to be going mad for every second of it. Is it any good? How do you even judge? If Clown Core’s intention is to create something genuinely unique, disturbing and unforgettable, then job done, but it’s hard to shake the looming spectre of that dreaded word ‘wacky’. Certainly, they’re worth witnessing once, for the WTF of it alone, but this kind of meme-y shtick surely has limited shelf life.
STEPHEN HILL