When I was a small child of about 16 or 17 years, David Sylvian was just about le dernier cri when it came to fashionable artistic types; The Art of Parties 12" vinyl still sits in my collection. Almost unbelievably it is apparently 21 post-Japan albums down the line that we come to Manafon, and this understated and elegant film for the wonderful track Small Metal Gods.
With resonant spaces between the sparse musical elements and the emotive vocal line, a minor miracle has happened here with an all-too-rare balance between the eloquent, poetic lyrics and the minimal accompaniment.
There were two other acts playing, and there was also the Hooves of Destiny, but there was no doubting the real centre of attention at a busy Electro Acoustic Club.
For the record, act 1, Emit Bloch, not entirely predictably a Jewish Cowboy from Utah who said he has 178 cousins, seems to be more a part of Devendra Banhart's away-with-the-fairies freak-folk extended family than he is a kosher rancher. Act 2 was a band that even the promoter's website doesn't name (and which I forgot to note from the set times poster) who played downbeat but pretty enough straight folk that was fine but didn't command attention.
Then came Beth, who by her own exuberant standards didn't let her personality blaze from the beginning - despite the two-foot tall hedge/backwards wig, atop a frock coat with lashings of gold braid and a layered mini dress. Funny thing was that she had been sporting pink hot-pants and a bra top an hour before playing; fool that I am, I had taken that to be the stage outfit. Nay, nay and thrice not.
After a low-key start to the set, Beth warmed to her task and gradually added her trademark banter, with practised stories of the songs' genesis and improvised deviations for everything else. It was good to see that the sometimes amusing but also rather self-indulgent and amateurish attitude to live shows, which has previously led to tunes being endlessly restarted or even abandoned altogether, is now a disappearing trait.
As mentioned previously, not all the songs are of equal merit, and although they are always fun to watch, the too-frequent oompah rhythm is in danger of mistaking 'jolly' for 'worth hearing'; however some songs are wonderful so let us not dwell on the quibbles. Most intriguing is the way Beth sings, suddenly switching from her hyper-animated chatter to a static almost trance-like state when The Voice flows, to wonderful effect, as on Golden, reluctantly played but I can't think why, it is fantastic. The muted trumpet worked a treat.
So: lots of the BJH back- and current catalogue and a couple of covers, all neatly rendered by the well-practised Hooves of Destiny; Nightswimmer, Veins and Golden were the stand-outs. Team Beth are ready to move up the ladder.
Dana from AU is brought to his knees by the revelation that he has developed a bumstick Photos: Anika
The Good Anna, unknown (and un-researched) by me, were presumably going to be a girl and a guitar - but by golly no. Some young men stepped up, and reading from left to right, they offered guitar, drums and violin, while a fourth, seated, contributor in front of the others read an A-Z. Opening with a shriek, he then ate a bagel at us, often whilst reading from the A-Z, sometimes whilst drinking orange juice too. The band busied themselves with semi-improvised skronkiness, melody clearly not central to their concerns, and after a while the front-man read jokes from a jazz mag, apparently purchased earlier at a service station. He claimed not to be too impressed with the magazine, but it did appear to be tidied away with the rest of their kit at the end of the set....
Highlights included the vocalist hurling himself to the floor, to the evident discomfort of the neat young man seated nearby who, taking no chances with such potentially hazardous improvisational art, quickly gathered up his glass of wine in a rather fey protective manoeuvre; some fairly vigorous seated dancing; and the fact that they stopped after 15 minutes or so.
Best quote: "I tried some of that meze stuff; I quite liked it but I didn't understand it". Second best quote, reviewing an unclad female person in the magazine: "Look! This girl here is never 18! Fucking disgrace I call it!"
For any other performance artists who might ever happen to see these words, it should be noted that The Good Anna didn't pause between numbers, which was a good tactic as there would likely have been awkward silences.... happily some polite applause was offered at the conclusion of events, mainly from relief it seemed. The number of emptied seats in front of the stage offered some insight into the true feelings of the audience - Dalston not up for anything more challenging than a lopsided hair-cut, perhaps?
After this, Mr Monk (promoting) felt the need to regain control of the evening by personally introducing Twi The Humble Feather, the second band, an acoustic guitar trio playing rhythmic, layered and rather ambient tunes with hooting non-verbal singing, which was pleasing and quite absorbing but also quickly led to wondering whether there wasn't something else that needed adding, like a lead guitar line or focal vocal.
Happy-go-Luke-y
AU, headlining, have translated the ethereal and often floaty sound of Verbs into something altogether punchier and considerably more vigorous for their live shows, demonstrated by opener Ida Walked Away, which was written to reflect their current format as a duo, and which bodes well for the forthcoming EP. Something of the lightness of touch of the album is lost in performance as there simply aren't enough pairs of hands available, nor any female voices. All good energetic fun though, and some of the tracks lost less than others, particularly encore Are Animals, which had the crowd on their feet and screaming - albeit at Luke's request; we weren't quite moved to an artsy coffee-shop version of speaking in tongues.
I am pleased to report that some excellent words have been used lately, 'oblation' being one of these in case you haven't gathered what is happening here.
ob‧la‧tion [uncountable and countable] formal a gift that is offered to God or a god, or the act of offering the gift Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Used in Pity Dance by DM Stith - "to descend again in sweet oblation" - the word itself (score: 8/10) is not best served by being rhymed with 'obliteration', which is hardly an elegant resolution as it is basically the same word with some extra letters in the middle.
Nonetheless, we applaud Mr Stith's efforts.
And as no visual stimulus was added to the review of his fantastic show in July, this seems to be a suitable point to add a nice film of another track, BMB, also on the recent album Heavy Ghost, where a beautiful lady turns into hexagons.
Maybe I'm a soft touch these days, but it is hard not to be impressed when presented with a Swedish singer who, when attempting to make the initially hesitant audience sing a refrain, apparently felt he was in danger of behaving in a rather teacherly manner, and described himself as such.
Clearly not caused by any linguistic inadequacies, his difficulty with nudging the crowd into life was mainly due to what had come before. The issue was not The Whispertown 2000, who tried to be perky but suffered badly from an unhelpfully early 7.30 start, and also seemed to struggle to make their performance fill the charming but slightly imposing venue - unlike Wildbirds & Peacedrums who were next to play, and who had no problems whatsoever with commanding the stage.
Wilbirds & Peacedrums take a break from making sweet sweet music off-stage to make sweet sweet music on-stage. Photo: Anika
Mariam has acknowledged in interviews that she is very responsive to the emotional energy of the audience, and clearly also to her environment, as in introduction she advised that, feeling it to be a special venue, she knew they were going to have a better time than us; if they did then they must still be in the afterglow....
W&P were both absolutely electrifying and really quite moving, a sensual, soaring and abandoned channelling of lust and love; they absolutely give the lie to all the posers and fakers, this is the real thing. Their qualities have already been acclaimed in the very first post on this blog, and this performance was all of those things and more, an ecstatic improvised dance through their repertoire, rampaging from delicate to dynamite in seconds. Heart- and show-stopping it was; and so back to Loney Dear, whose softly swelling folky roving was always going to struggle to impress after such intoxicating delights.
And so it proved - a very engaging and witty personality, his gently uplifting songs on on any other night would be a fine finale to the evening; this time, despite generous approval from a still receptive crowd, the fireworks had already been and gone and it was just a bit post-climactic.
Unsurprisingly, humour being what it is, TTMOE is not only not the tallest etc but is probably all of 5'4", including 2 inches of quiff. So irony was layered upon irony when, from the low stage at Barden's, he couldn't give the nod to the sound guy that he was ready to roll - because he couldn't see over the crowd to catch his eye....
He was, when he did get going, pretty good; indeed half the crowd seemed to think him a demi-god - knew all the words and were happy to sing along, uninvited; not bad for a debut UK gig. Some fun was had with this, with choruses missed and crescendos adapted, just to wrong-foot the choir in the crowd. TTMOE was clearly flattered, despite the games.
If the headline act was a roaring success and highly enjoyable, the opposite can be said of the support acts. Dismal, dull and pretty much devoid of interest, they shall not be named here (but are here if you are feeling spiteful). I can't imagine what they think they are doing, or why anyone would book them for gigs.
They weren't helped, admittedly, by the sound problems, which were pretty much inexcusable for such simple set-ups, unless the equipment was at fault; either way, Barden's please take note.
The Leisure Society look very clean, and polite, and are charming on stage. Funny asides are likely to come from Slightly Cheeky Christian, and at Green Man singer Nick Hemming speculated, after having seen Messrs Rossen, Droste & co backstage, on "how great it must be to be in a band that is more amazing than an actual Grizzly Bear".
Well I laughed, anyway.
They wear nice clothes, as if they are going to tea with mum later, sing with nice clear voices, and have a flute, uke, glock and string section in their armoury. Helpfully, they also have really lovely songs - no but REALLY lovely, earning, and deserving, compliments from a lot of the good Guys, including Garvey.
The aforementioned lovely songs feature gentle lilting melodies, occasionally with a slight wistful twang, some judicious borrowings from other folk music cultures for a bit of spice, and with witty and elegant, softly spoken arrangements that explore and make intelligent use of the available options.
At times they are almost capturing the spirit of the Penguin Cafe; often mentioned as an influence by a certain type of musician, I can't think of any other act that achieves similar qualities - and unfortunately that includes the current incarnation of Penguins, led by Arthur Jeffes, son of - so for what it's worth, that is high praise indeed.
Watching The Leisure Society is like having a cuddle; and so it was at King's Place yesterday.
Video below may or may not stay once Ulla has sent me those pics. :-)
A quite beautiful video - washed out and dreamy, to match her best songs; this rather plinky-plonky effort, however, isn't really one of them, truth be told. Beth has an effortless silky voice, seemingly boundless energy, and some much better songs up her sleeve - when she remembers to put her shirt on, at any rate....
Looking forward to the album, but the new EP feels a bit like a temporary measure.
Straight out of Manchester 1979, via Bristol 1994 > 2008; here we are a quick and easy 30 years down the line.
It is punching way above even my weight to criticise Geoff Barrow, but imagine how much better this could have been if the drums did something more than just keep time....
I Know, the other track from the forthcoming album that has so far been set free, works with a similar metronomic and minimal structure but has a few more wiggles going on which make it that (important) bit more human.
