Moor Mother

Intelligently structured and intense surmises the music of the evening

Travelling all the way from Philadelphia, Moor Mother’s politically charged form of sound art is a forceful spectacle. Most known for her critically acclaimed 2016 album Fetish Bones she combines experimental hip-hop, noise and spoken word into an impressively potent cocktail, it was a must-see at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

Intelligently structured and intense surmises the music of the evening. Opening with words on the sun, developing into musings on gender, then American gun culture, which moves quickly onto anti-capitalism and ends by combining the concepts into a holistic critique of Western oppression. The telling of the story is coherent and done with a great amount of clarity. It’s logical and intellectual in its approach which adds a richness to the political statement. They have a huge range of sounds too, opening with operatic old-timey music, backed with noise and synthesized trills. Utilising two mics with different effects, creates a unique layered sound.

Early on in the set she asks, ‘Turn the lights down’, and as the venue gets darker as the sun sets, she’s completely silhouetted by the projections behind her. The projection is a set of thematically linked images, repeated uses of clocks connects with her chants of ‘time’, combined with the intensity of performance, it has a mesmerizing quality.

The pieces traverse musical genres at break-speed. Everything from pulsing subby bass to breakbeat techno – even when the music gets into a groove, it doesn’t hold too long. The music is merely exhibited, and the musical moments are often fleeting and unsettled. Despite the set only lasting an hour, it fits perfectly and is produced with technical simplicity – one musician, laptop, tablet and two microphones put into multi effects pedals. It left enough time to say what needed to be said and the rapturous applause was more than deserved.