ASOBI SEKSU Crawdaddy, Dublin Wed 8pm €15/€12.50 01-4763374: Anyone out there awaiting those hoped-for live dates from My Bloody Valentine can take comfort in the fact that, for the moment at least, Asobi Seksu are around to pick up the sonic slack.
Not that this NYC-based, part-Japanese band are slavish disciples; no, rather than ape MBV, they filter that band’s glazed guitar noise with the Jap-pop indie smirks of Pizzicato Five, Cibo Matto and the quite delightfully named Puffy AmiYumi. Add in snippets of Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, and you have a shoegazing, blue-sky grazing band who marry gauzy soundscapes with a pithy pop sensibility and who have, over the space of a couple of albums, forged their own identity. The name? It’s Japanese slang for “playful sex”. The T-shirts will likely sell out in jig-time.
