A blog on gigs, music, art and London.

Friday 28 May 2010

Jóhann Jóhannsson, Greg Haines & Nils Frahm, St Giles-in-the-Fields, 27/05/10

I was at St Giles-in-the-Fields last night to see the Arctic Circle promoted concert featuring three acclaimed modern classical musicians – Nils Frahm, Greg Haines and Jóhann Jóhannsson. It was my second visit to St Giles, another great London church-venue and definitely a worthy rival to Union Chapel up the road in Islington. I love how the natural light filters in from the side windows of the church and as it gets darker outside this is replicated inside. I arrived slightly later than planned so had to take a seat at the back which doesn’t really have the greatest sightlines (the only negative, along with the uncomfortable pews) so I spent a lot of the show with eyes closed, absorbed in the music.

I had seen Nils Frahm support the North Sea Radio Orchestra here last year and he played a similar set of deep, rippling, impressionistic piano sequences. I love how he enters the church via the same entrance as the audience, informally approaches the piano, removes his bag, sits down and starts to effortlessly play his music from memory. As I remarked in my post on the last time I saw him play he seems totally entranced by his own music. Really moving stuff.

I found Greg Haines’ set very much like his albums – beautiful and engaging, if slightly cold and austere (although in an enjoyable way). He played piano & laptop with support from a colleague playing viola, producing brittle melodies that sat alongside vignettes of abstract sound. He finished with a track from his recently released his second album ‘Until The Point Of Hushed Support’.

Icelandic composer/performer Jóhann Jóhannsson is somewhat of a defining artist for me in terms of the direction in which my recent musical listening has progressed. The last three years has seen modern classical dominate my listening and Jóhann Jóhannsson has assumed a central role alongside artists like Max Richter, Peter Broderick, Sylvain Chauveau, Eluvium, Murcof, Olafur Arnalds, Goldmund, Jacaszek and Ryan Teague in this development.

His slow-building, richly orchestral music, full of gracious arches and melodic curves, is both musically rewarding and shows an impressive scale of ambition (his recent album ‘Fordlândia’ is about the failed project of Amercian car manufacturer Henry Ford to create a town in the Amazon rainforest which would provide him with a cheap source of rubber for the tyres for his cars – you can read more about it here).

Tonight he played piano/electronics alongside the magnificent Iskra String Quartet, playing a set drawn mostly from his albums ‘Fordlândia, & ‘Englabörn’. I have only been able to listen to his new album ‘And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees’ a couple of times so I am not as familiar with it as I could be but I don’t think he played anything from it tonight? If anyone out there knows differently please let me know!

He finished his main set with a sublime version of ‘Odi Et Ami’ from ‘Englabörn’, then returned for an encore which ended with the epic title track from ‘Fordlândia’ – which, every time I listen to it, seems more like a musical representation of a sunrise. As the strings quietly appear you can imagine a sun edging above the horizon, the strings swell and resonate as the sun rises until it stands tall in the sky, the radiant orchestral sound finding form in the beams of light projecting downwards. I don’t know, maybe I have watched one too many BBC science documentaries (a few of which have been soundtracked by this piece of music). It was how I had hoped he would end the concert and featured some sensational playing from all involved.

Friday 21 May 2010

Tim Hecker & Chihei Hatakeyama, Cafe Oto, 19/05/10

I made my first trip to Café Oto on Wednesday night to see Tim Hecker and Chihei Hatakeyama. I was impressed by the venue – an excellent, small, dimly-lit, informal, seated venue. Tonight’s show was sold out (I would guess the venue has a capacity of around 150?) and was played through a 4 way speaker system, which helped create a suitably hypnotic, enveloping atmosphere.

Japanese musician Chihei Hatakeyama opened with a studied set of ambient electronica, played via two laptops. Tonight was his first show in the UK. He began with 20 minutes of Brian Eno-esque waves of warm, textured, fairly unfluctuating sound. He introduced a little more variety into the final minutes of his set, the sound being disrupted by gentle moments of distortion, before it eventually faded away into silence.

I have been enjoying Tim Hecker’s recorded albums over the last couple of years (‘Radio Amor’, ‘Harmony In Ultraviolet’ and ‘An Imaginary Country’ in particular) so was very much looking forward to the live experience. He played his set from the opposite end of the venue to Chihei Hatakeyama, using a laptop and electronics to create a rewarding, immersive sound full of layers and detail. It was loud, but not uncomfortably so, and contained everything I expected from a Tim Hecker show. Barren, inhospitable sonic landscapes. Crumbling, decaying walls of sound. Dense, metallic thunderstorms of distorted noise. All in the space of a 45 minute set. Highly recommended. Go check out Café Oto also if you get the chance – a great little place in Dalston, east London.

Saturday 8 May 2010

Tindersticks / The Unthanks, Le Bataclan, Paris, 03/05/10

I made quite an exciting trip to Paris last weekend to see Tindersticks play a show at Le Bataclan.

My first impressions of the venue were positive - it was smaller and more intimate than I had imagined, with an upper balcony. The official capacity seems to be 1500 but it didn't really look big enough to accomodate this number I thought. In terms of comparing it to a London venue I would say maybe it came closest to a smaller version of The Kentish Town Forum, although this does not really do it justice.




Support came from modern-trad folk outfit The Unthanks. Quite ironic how I go all the way to Paris for a gig and end up seeing a band from my hometown, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I had seen them a few years ago at The Borderline (when they were known as Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, and were only a four-piece as opposed to the eight-piece they had grown to tonight). 

I had read that gig-goers in Paris generally tend to arrive late so I decided just to get to the venue shortly after the opening time printed on the ticket (i.e. 20:00). I got the Metro to Oberkampf, headed to Le Bataclan and noticed the doors were already open and The Unthanks were already on stage.  The venue was not so full so I was able to get a place close to the front. I'm not sure how long they had been playing for but I managed to catch them play four songs - 'Lucky Gilchrist', 'Annachie Gordon', 'Sad February' & 'Here's The Tender Coming' which all sounded great. I love Rachel's voice, so pure and clear. During 'Lucky Gilchrist' they did a bit of 'clog dancing' (as Rachel explained to the crowd, promising them that it would soon be in vogue in Paris). They chose to thank the crowd with 'mercis' rather than 'thank yous'. Nice/slightly unusual to hear some Geordie accents in Paris.



I had seen Tindersticks play a great concert at Shepherd's Bush Empire in March (I blogged about it here). If honest I hoped they may play a slightly different set in Paris but knew that this was a little unlikely (so it proved).

I think the set went approximately like this:

Falling Down A Mountain
Keep You Beautiful
Sometimes It Hurts
Marbles
Bathtime
She Rode Me Down
Hubbards Hill
Marseilles Sunshine
The Other Side Of The World
Peanuts
Black Smoke
Tie-Dye
Factory Girls
A Night In
Harmony Around My Table

Dying Slowly
Can We Start Again?

All The Love

Generally quite a similar set to Shepherd's Bush Empire, although disappointingly they chose to finish with 'All The Love', whereas in London they finished with 'City Sickness'. I do like 'All The Love' but 'City Sickness' really would have been a perfect ending to a brilliant show. When they came back on Stuart mentioned how they had "had an argument backstage" on what song to close with "and he won". I guess the others wanted 'City Sickness'. They also played 'Marseilles Sunshine', a Stuart Staples solo track. The new album sounded good again, really soulful and maybe a little lighter than their previous work. As ever, Stuart seemed totally consumed with delivering the vocals as perfectly as possible, agonising over every syllable. The reaction from the crowd started off enthusiastically, before soon reaching rapturous levels towards the end, with prolonged periods of sustained applause forcing the band to pause for it to subside. It certainly eclipsed the London show in terms of atmosphere. Stuart commented that "we don't really have a home but this could be it" (or words to that effect), quite appropriate given their recent soundtracks to French films (check out '35 Shots Of Rum' for their latest work).


It was good to hear 'Tie-Dye', strobes flickering intensely across the stage as feedback-supplemented chords rang out from the guitars. I have recently come to love 'The Other Side Of The World' also, in particular the quasi-existentialist lyrics. 'A Night In' and 'Bathtime' were spine-tinglingly good as usual and the three songs that usually feature female vocalists ('Sometimes It Hurts', 'Peanuts' and 'Can We Start Again?') didn't really suffer without them. 'Black Smoke' and 'Harmony Around My Table' are about as close to indie-pop that Tindersticks get and sounded really vibrant and (uncharacteristically) optimistic. 

So, another excellent gig. Hopefully next time they tour we might get to hear some different older songs. I had really hoped they might fit in their cover of Odyssey's 'If You're Looking For A Way Out',  from their 'Simple Pleasure' album. I had listened to it pretty much on a daily basis for the weeks leading up to the gig. Oh well, maybe one day...

Woodpigeon / Laura Gibson / Withered Hand, Union Chapel, 06/05/10

I made a late decision to pick up a ticket to see Canadian indie-rock-pop outfit Woodpigeon at Union Chapel on Thursday night, largely based on hearing (and loving) the track 'Woodpigeon Vs Eagleowl' from their new album 'Die Stadt Muzikanten' (thanks to Word magazine for including it on their April edition CD). The fact that Laura Gibson was supporting and that it was at Union Chapel also helped make my decision.

I hadn't heard anything about the opening support act Withered Hand (a Scottish singer-songwriter called Dan Willson) but he was brilliant, definitely the highlight of the show for me. He kind of inhabits a similar musical territory to Jeffrey Lewis and Daniel Johnston and played a great selection of funny, touching, confessional, lo-fi songs, with shaky, self-deprecating vocals. I loved 'Religious Songs' and especially 'Cornflake' (with its brilliant line of "John Harvey Kellogg doesn't want me for a sunbeam" which lodged itself in my mind for the next few days). He even sounded a little like Neil Young at times, albeit an outsider, anti-folk version. Check out a great live recording of 'Cornflake' here. I'd recommend going to see him play live if you get the opportunity.
I had saw Laura Gibson only a few weeks earlier supporting Port O'Brien at The Borderline and she turned in another confident set of stripped-down alt-folk songs, full of pretty vocals and audience participation.

I really enjoyed Woodpigeon although I do think they sound better on record. Their beautifully crafted, hazy, warm songs remind me of Elliott Smith, Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens. Live, their songs sound a little heavier and have a harder edge than the immaculate melodies, strings/brass arrangements and girl-boy harmonies of their records. They are quite an engaging spectacle live - the slightly reserved guys on one side of the stage playing guitars, sporting impressively large beards, while the pretty girls on the other side play keyboards, violin & flute, provide backing vocals and spend most of the set dancing along to the songs. I am very much looking forward to hearing their new album over coming weeks...