WORLD OF TWIST
Geographically from Manchester, the World of Twist in reality are from everywhere and nowhere. Fusing together 60's psychedelia with post-Manchunian-mania, one wonders if the world is ready for a sudden twist in musical direction...
World of Twist are not around the twist. But they're twisted for sure. They are currently tweaking the nose of Manchester music, twisting it and bending it, mentally adjusting it like some insane paperclip brought to life by the magic of Alice's Wonderland and trying desperately to make sense of a book on the art of Origami. Their influences are wide and varied. Mathematically drawn out on the historical map of pop music, the origins of their musical textures would probably resemble some businessman's bizarre desktop toy: some circular, spinning metallic object flashing in the light of circular desktop lamp.
...And if that sounds rather odd, then try and imagine four impossible things before the scrumptious feast of seeing the World of Twist live on stage. Because yes, folks, the visual experience is back. The World of Twist are not a band who simply walk onto stage, plug in their guitars, switch on their synthesizers, screech down a microphone, switch off and then disapear...The World of Twist materialise on stage and play music like a dazzling, colour television set. It's a world of rainbow twisted and interwoven like the stalks of daises in a chain.
"An emphasis on the visual side is what we want," says Adge, the man responsible for the audiovisuals of the World of Twist, "And it's definitely something we want to develop. A lot of venues we perform in are very small so we have to adjust the visuals to meet the needs of each individual place"
Watching the World of Twist is like peering at them through the revolving, colourful distortions of a kaleidoscope. Swirling projections of strange, psychedelic shapes bubble together to form the words 'Rock and Roll" and the whole thing spins like an erratic cog in some peculiar sci-fi machinery. Silver fishing nets hang like luminous spider webs above the speakers and throughout it all moves the girl, MC Shells, resembling some glamorous Gerry Anderson puppet.
"The stage show is still very much in its embryonic stages," says Adge. "But being 'performers' is definitely where we are coming from. We want to make the show as spectacular as possible and we're certainly not afraid to let new ideas creep in. At the moment we just need some better organisation so that we can make them all happen. We've got ideas coming from here, there and everywhere, not just 'Their Satanic Majesty's Request' but from the twentieth century and beyond as well.
'Their Satanic Majesty's Request' (The Rolling Stones' '67 answer to Sgt. Pepper) is cited as an influence, both visually and musically; an album of rough and ready psychedelia emerging at a time when many bands were photographed through the circluar distortions of a fish-eye's lens - the camera mans's answer to drug-influenced visual experience. Indeed, World of Twist seem to have taken on board this colouring of '67 psychedelia by having themselves photographed in a similar way and even covering 'She's a Rainbow on the b-side of the single 'The Storm' ('She's a Rainbow' originally appeared on the b-side of 'Their Satanic Majesty's Request').
"It's just something that surfaced," says Adge, "and wasn't really deliberately developed. It certainly wasn't calculated or anything. Our influences are much wider than that..."
...And indeed they are. The music of World of Twist is difficult to categorise. Listening to them one hears the snatches of psychedelia, house and swirling Brian Eno-like synth noises; as conglomeration of music textures which work.
Their debut single 'The Storm' may have dropped recently in the charts, but gaze deeper into the crystal ball and one sees a band in embryonic stages of future success...
"For some people the visuals will be a hit," says Adge. "Others, I'm sure, will react against it. Particularly those that just want the purity of the band getting up there and playing."
Andy Hitchen
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