King Tuts Wah Wah Hut,11 October
Spacial Awareness
Such is the respect shown by Helicon for Spacial Awareness that they themselves penned this description of their opening act.
Spacial Awareness is a new project from Belle and Sebastian’s Chris Geddes and Dave McGowan.
Inspired by 70s German pioneers like Neu! and Harmonia, Brian Eno’s ambient works, and the synth explorations of Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre, the duo trade pop song structures for space, texture and repetition, crafting music that feels like wandering through empty deserts, looking up at endless stars, and losing yourself in the vastness of it all.
Did the duo live up to the above expectations?
I certainly thought so, with the ambient feel of the music acting like some gentle moisturiser for the main act to follow. With keyboards, synths and pedal steel guitar to the fore throughout the short set, it was the perfect reminder of the breadth and depth of music that can be found on any given day if you know where to look for it.
Definitely an act I hope to see and hear more of in the not too distant future.
Helicon
It’s a Saturday night in King Tuts Wah Wah Hut. With a packed, expectant audience, an evening of psychedelic music, driven by guitars, the sitar, bass, drums, tambourines and vocals await us all.
The stage is bathed in a deep red during almost the entirety of the set. It is a setting that looks and feels like the fires of Helicon have been opened for this special homecoming performance.
While John-Paul Hughes takes the lead role in introducing the songs, thanking everyone for coming along, promoting the upcoming album at the start of 2026 and playing lead guitar, all eyes invariably follow Graham Gordon on sitar and synths. He has that manic look that captivates the audience watching. There can be few bands where the sitar is the driving force of many of the tracks played and yet that is precisely what Helicon are all about.
A mystical alliance of eastern influences blended with driving bass and drums accompanying a cacophony of fuzzed guitars. In general, the music has that elongated instrumental feel about it, a sophisticated jam with space for vocals at a premium. The vocals though is a shared duty across the band, most prevalent through John Paul and Anna McCracken.
The set itself mixes the old with the new, and it is a comfort to everyone in the venue who have been following the band throughout their career, that the new music, Goodbye Cool World, Adjust The Dosage and Tabula Rasa sound as imperious as everything the band have recorded to date.
From the opening track Helonica to the closing Seraph and Tae The Moon the band look and feel relaxed in their own little space. Very little space in fact with eight trying to get on the stage at several points in the show.
No time was wasted getting off and back on stage for the final two tracks as an encore. It was precious time that extended the instrumental aspects of the songs much to the delight of everyone watching.
Helicon have been around the block for a good few years now, with studio and live albums to show for their endeavours and, on the basis of Saturday’s performance, their future looks pretty secure.
