Bruce Soord & Sweet Billy Pilgrim

Went along to the Sweet Billy Pilgrim with Bruce Soord [pineapple thief] as support last night - well it was a 20mins down the road.
Venue was nice, even nicer was the keg of brakspear bitter. So quiet pint before it kicked off.

Bruce was playing some tracks from his forthcoming solo album, with Darran from Godsticks (who we caught many years ago at a festival). Sadly there was a backing track of drums and bass, and it was a very synth drum sound. Think it would have worked better with just the two of them. Songs sounded really good, pushing more towards the Wisdom of Crowds stuff than Magnolia, which suits me since I havne't really clicked with Magnolia.

Sweet Billy Pilgrim: I went into them having heard about 2 minutes of a video. I came away quite sold on them. Bit hard to describe them, folk / indie, they're on KScope which doesn't help much either. At times rambling, in a controlled way, and very talented - umm Johnny Flynn meets Pulp meets, err, I dunno. Here's a video, and on the strength of hte gig, I'll be picking up the new vinyl from Burning Shed. CD here. Vinyl here.

gigs - swans and classical

I've had a couple of gigs in the last couple of weeks, both quite different to each other in style and result.

First up was the Swans in Manchester. They're on the road promoting their new album 'To Be Kind' which Buzz'n'Hum has reviewed here. Swans are not a background music kind of band, words such as relentless, uncompromising, scary, brutal, direct etc are the usual starting point for their reviews. Interestingly the new album, the followup to the stunning The Seer, has a strong krautrock vibe kicking along in the background. And it's that krautrock vibe that really came to the fore live, there's an (almost) danceable groove kicking along, which was unexpected. Imagine Can meets Tool meets [modern] Scott Walker. Sort-of. 

The band don't interact with the audience much, but Gira is quite mesmerising as a frontman. His vocals range from throaty menace to high pitched screams, all of which suck the audience into their highly dysfunctional world (mirror?). 

Speaking of the audience, great cross section of ages at the gig, even if it was, largely, a sausage fest. Swans appear to approach winning audiences over but figuring brutally sonically assaulting them is probably the best approach. It seemed to work. But it was also refreshing to have an audience there for the gig unlike most London concerts... but I did cherish my earplugs.

If you like your music challenging, at times nightmarish, try either The Seer or To Be Kind. The latter has more groove and is probably the more approachable of the two. And yes, approachable is entirely the wrong word. But they're both very very rewarding.

Last night I went to the Chamber Ensemble of London who were playing here as part of the LU Arts programme. An interesting programme on paper of British composers, many of whom I'd never heard of.

Kicked off with Purcell's Overture and Rondeau from Abdalazer which is one of my favourite pieces of music. Things didn't start well. The violins (more precisely the 1st violins) were slightly out of tune to each other. Entries were tentative, leading to a jagged start to themes as the instruments came in. I felt the balance was out too, I was sitting in the middle of a row about 3/4 back in the auditorium and the sound was dominated by the lead violins, which was a shame as the viola/cello/bass performances were excellent - when you could hear them. Personally, I thought they massacred Abdalazer which put me in a bad mood to start with. The same ragged performances and slipped notes occurred in the next piece, things improved when they played English pastoral, probably as the shimmering style of pastoral music covers more out of tune and entry issues.

I quite enjoyed the Harold Darke (of 'in the bleak midwinter' fame) piece (Fantasy in E major) which their composer in residence had orchestrated from an organ piece. 

The Ensemble can play very well, as I'd heard a few tracks from their new album on ClassicFM, but something was very amiss for this performance. It was so bad that I left at halftime, I put on John K Samson's Provincial which restored my humour somewhat.

Here's a version of the Rondeau which has more attack (and is in tune) than what I heard last night:

and here's some John K Samson.

me

Gigs wot I has seen: Enid, Phoenix Foundation, Mark Knopfler, Handsome Family and Iron & Wine

May had set itself up as a big gig month, well big in terms of numbers of gigs.
First up were the Enid, a band who have gone from strength to strength over the last few years. It's the second or third time I've seen them in the last couple of years, and whats become clear is that their vocalist (Joe Payne) has taken over effectively conducting the band which has made them much tighter. He's also a brilliant vocalist, with an excellent range and very smooth transition into his falsetto.
Excellent gig. and I their most recent album, Invicta, is a superb combination of symphonic with hints of rock. Buy it from the band.

Next up was a brace of Phoenix Foundation gigs. We trundled up to Liverpool, discovered good coffee and great beer around Parr Street. The venue, Kazimier, is small, quirky, and throughly recommended. James was support, or rather Lawrence Arabia, who was on fine form - crowd seemed to enjoy him, except the rather pissed Liverpudlians.  I can thoroughly recommend his new album, The Sparrow, it's quirky, interesting, and sweet. BBC review here. So to the Phoenix lads, my major issue with their recent gigs has been their professionalism - an ironic thing to complain about - but I do love the early gigs where the excitement was added to with (a) are they all playing the same thing and (b) will they all finish at the same time?
The Liverpool gig was similar to this, although not by the boys' choice - a bunch of rather inebriated chaps were wanting specific songs, and ruining their setlist, but adding to the cool vibe. Enjoyed it.
Pottered along to the Glam show at the Tate Liverpool the next day, it seemed to lack focus and context, but enjoyable.
The PB London gig was in a larger venue, no Lawrence (sadly), but by god did they go off. Strong kiwi contingent, but seemed a large number of locals - huzzah.

Next up, Knopfler in Cardiff. I've raved about his new album, Privateering, and I like Cardiff. Good pubs, inclduing The Goat Major, who do a very good line in pies (hear that Mr Thompson?). And the Cardiff Art Gallery, really is superb.
So the gig, I've seen Knopfler a few times now, first time with Dire Straits, and the others as a solo act. This was a seated stadium gig (Arena Motorspot in the Cardiff central area), and sadly it showed. The band, who were brilliant, weren't really given their lead and so seemed to lack passion - except for a couple of pieces where they could do what they wanted. Some of it was sublime, and the new album sounded good and bluesy brilliant, but over all I felt it was a bit flat. Enjoyable, but not memorable. Not enough to make me buy a copy of the concert at £25.

Back to Lboro, and across to Leicester for The Handsome Family. Again, a bit of a favourite live. And this time they had a real drummer, rather than the *dodgy* drum machine they've had previously. This made a difference, stopping Brett playing with the machine was a good move. The banter is still brilliant, and the songs are dark, twisted, funny and great. Really enjoyed the gig, and it looks like I might pick up the new album shortly...dammit.

And down to London for Iron and Wine. Pottered along to the Bowie exhibition at the V&A, which was crowded, and enjoyable, but to be honest I'm still not taken with Bowie as a musician, but came away with appreciation of his contribution as an artist (does that make sense?). But probably worth getting the V&A membership for, particularly as I pottered along to the treasures of the Russian and English courts exhibition, which I enjoyed far more than the Bowie (to be honest).
So iron and wine, hmmm, grumble, he had a big band with him almost trying to swing the songs - and having seen him before, I don't think it worked. I thought the intimacy of the songs was lost. The newer stuff worked better, but songs such as Jezebel, was a nightmare for me.
On the strength of this concert, I didn't buy the album. I will spin it on Spotify, but I'm not rushing. Felt a bit grumpy after this gig for the lack of vibe I'd had from the albums, and the gig I'd been to.