WOMAD festival, Charlton Park

I AM often haunted by Mark Fisher’s sobering claim that innovation in music died with the triumph of neoliberal capitalism in the 1990s. But seeing performers like Theon Cross it feels like he spoke too soon. 

Theon’s second album from 2021 was a thoroughly 21st-century meltdown of various electro, dub and jazz influences, practically creating a new genre in its own right. Tonight’s fully live band is more firmly in the jazz tradition, with Patrick Boyle converting the original chemical beats into something more organic whilst still retaining the power and urgency of the original recordings. 

Theon himself provides the basslines from his tuba, accompanied by the sublime Chelsea Carmichael on saxophone, with atmospherics provided by the incredibly versatile Nikos Zarkos on guitar. Yet the influence of ragga, jungle, grime and hiphop still looms large, influencing the beat and syncopation of the horn lines, as well as the dynamics of the sound as a whole. 

And there is a particular moment towards the end of an extended dub reggae-influenced workout where Patrick’s bass drum does a double kick just after the one and it feels like a whole new rhythmic world has been opened up. 

With the future of music in the hands of musicians like this, Fisher needn’t have worried. 

Theon’s erstwhile musical partner Shabaka Hutchings makes up one-third of Saturday night headliners Comet is Coming, always a thrillingly intense live experience that leaves you feeling like the granny in Aphex Twin’s Come To Daddy video. 

Along with Shabaka’s other band Sons of Kemet, appearances by the Comet have the highest level of “churn” I have seen of any festival audience, as equally large numbers are drawn in and forced out, palms flat against their ears, both with the same question on their lips: “what the f*** is this?”, which is surely the highest accolade any creative could hope for. 

Like Jesus, they come not to bring peace, but a sword — a refreshingly polarising act, thoroughly befitting of our fractured times. 

Moving into Sunday, self-styled “zombie folk” duo Puuluup breathe new life into the traditional four-stringed Estonian tarharpa. As well as being supremely talented purveyors of gorgeous modern folk music, they are also hilarious, their whole show being something of a gentle satire on the “ethno-folk” industry in which Womad resides. 

“As folk musicians, we have to talk a lot between songs,” they explain, before educating us in great detail about their incredible instrument, the loop station, and how it enabled them to sack the other 38 members of their group. 

Dressed in black suits and with a wickedly deadpan humour, they have the demeanour of a hungover viking and a irate rabbi at a funeral, but all their self-deprecating banter cannot hide their sparkling musicianship. Highly recommended. 

Highlight of the festival, however, has to be afro-punk powerhouse Lova Lova. 

The Congolese vocalist and songwriter is so innovative he doesn’t even sound like his own recordings, let alone anyone else’s. 

Whilst his recorded output is heavy on the electronics — all looped chemical beats, synth bass and atmospheric keyboard — for his live show he, like Theon Cross, has eschewed the tech for a fully live band. 

The burgeoning and ever-astonishing Kinshasa music scene has a reputation for using whatever materials are available to get whatever sound is needed — with bands like Mbongwana Star and Fulu Miziki often using straight up trash to make their instruments — and Lova Lova is no exception. 

With just drums and two bass guitars, his band were able to sound at times like a thrash metal band, traditional soukous guitarists, or a whole troupe of drummers. 

As well as highly skilled musicians and brilliant showmen — Lova Lova himself has a towering presence, driven largely by his intense, at times catatonic, stare, striding around the stage like a wrestler circling his opponent — they are incredible athletes, playing at full power for the whole set. Utterly life-affirming. 

Fisher should have gone to Kinshasa.