Joe Levi - Becoming The Alien - Album Review

A few moons back, you would find Joe Levi strutting through the streets of Manchester, making vibrations in venues with The Jungfraus, but upon a visit to California in the summer of 2013, he fell in love and before long, he was transported to a life in LA, to marry Kristina Drager, and perform with her in a new five-piece group, The Village Fate. Approximately, a year ago, following an accident where he severely hurt his chest, back and arms, Levi was bound to his apartment in Los Feliz to recover. During this time, he started working on a solo record that would eventually form this release, Becoming The Alien, the follow up to 2011’s The Friends & The Family. 

This set of six songs can be interpreted through the lens of a character exploring feelings of adaptation, a fantastical imagination perhaps of what Levi has recently experienced. The eeriness and wonder of Becoming The Alien seems to sonically reflect a flower, nurtured in the soil of Albion, now exposed to West Coast sunshine.

The physical constraints Levi had to deal with from his accident informed these new songs massively. Forced to spend a considerable amount of time at home as his body mended, his creativity was directed to more solo compositions away from the band, and with an injured hand, the piano and keyboards in the living room offered the most support, quickly becoming the central instruments for his songwriting over this period. Further instrumentation was employed to colour the recordings as his body healed.

The life of the album emerges and exits by the sound of an S.O.S., framed as a message in a bottle, washed up on the listener’s shore. The piano with faded tuning puts us immediately on uncanny ground before Levi’s ever-rich baritone reaches out to us, firm but vulnerable. With a reduced ensemble, the changes in the linear forms of these songs are more exaggerated and Levi takes joy in bold juxtapositions. With Becoming The Alien [EP], Levi also celebrates Musical Theatre-style pomp in his melodies and cadences which is a new sensibility not present on previous recording. Six Thousand Miles embodies a princely spirit as its synthesised strings chop, like a horse galloping, a companion from the old country. The rhythms throughout the record are tastefully left in the arms of the tuned-percussion instruments already employed (except for a charming primitive synth click-pattern on the final track). Glockenspiels regularly glisten on top of the rumble of piano chords. The closing song, Pieces Of Me, brings the EP’s melancholy and triumph to an excruciating climax, with the repeating chorus progressions soaked in the memories of an emotionally exhausting journey. As the final pulsing bass note chimes, and the music fades, you are left with the echoes of the record’s tenderness.   

This is Levi’s most confident vision to date, incorporating various musical styles with a deft touch, alongside lyrics that are not afraid to explore sensitive confessions, without sacrificing present carefree colour. Though certain melodic phrasing is not dissimilar to formative work, it is the flamboyance and ease with which he organises his ideas now to imagine these richer, more complex songs, that attests a growth in his prowess. Life’s attempts to throw him off-balance have only shown his capacity to find bolder ways in which to respond and create. It is this quality that makes him one of the legitimate rock ’n’ rollers.

Listen here:
https://joelevi.bandcamp.com/album/becoming-the-alien


[2016.02.13] Independent Writing.

KOAN 4: Collaborations - Live at The Globe, Newcastle

Shelly Knotts & Mark Carroll / James Wyness & Christian Alderson / Adam Denton, Nigel of Coalburns and trubba not

For the last of Martin Donkin’s KOAN instalments this year, the programme focusses on collaborative improvisation. By enthusing individual musicians to risk experimenting live together, the evening was set-up as a roll of the dice: would instincts synergise, combine or go another way?

Having wanted to work with Adam Denton for a long time, Donkin finally had that wish realised earlier this autumn. As trubba not, alongside Nigel of Coalburns, he got to improvise with the musician responsible, in-part, for the Trans/Human project (amongst other journeys.) This first operation together with Denton took place outside; at the Bandstand in Exhibition Park.

https://soundcloud.com/trubba-not/live-on-the-bandstand-adam-denton-nigel-of-coalburns-and-trubba-not
     

Now, under the roof of The Globe this evening, with the curtains drawn shut and the lights down, the trio explored the collaboration further, involving strings of pearls, cymbals, and guitar pick-up manipulation amongst other tools and techniques. Nigel of Coalburns, poised in his seat, often held taut facial expressions whilst he delivered heavily reverberated vocal tones. Altogether, this was a haunted sonic walk through an eerily quiet and uncanny place.

Next up, under generic lighting, James Wyness manipulated drones and patterns from his laptop/mixer set-up, whilst Christian Alderson gave a typically furtive and skilful development of patterns from his drum-kit. Whilst Wyness coloured the horizon of the soundscape, like a sun in different stages of rising and setting, Alderson played in the foreground. Sticking patterns on skin fell in-and-out of phase with loops of noise and pitched-tone motifs from Wyness’ laptop. The piece ended with a crescendo of percussion, as if teeth were grinding harder and harder.

Weaver of electronics, Shelly Knotts and explorer of the future-cello, Mark Carroll had the darkness restored as they started the final set of the evening. The piece reached an exquisite tension midway, after Carroll had been exploring a spider-esque tapping technique at the bridge of his electric-cello, and Knotts had guided the sound to the last stop before silence. The resolution came as a resurrection; a lot of unsetting loops, with subtly juxtaposing-dynamics, all building the detail of an increasingly thunderous wave. Big smiles and a confident handshake between the pair at the end, as the audience applauded, showed that this performance energised both musicians for possible future duetting.

I highly recommend Donkin’s KOAN evenings, for his curation is amongst the most focussed, and the talented people he engages for each instalment are always fascinating and specifically tailored to a thematic programme. The capacity attendance here at KOAN 4 will definitely have their eyes peeled for the date of next episode.

[2016.11.25] for NARC Magazine.

Pink Martini - Live at Hall 1, The Sage, Gateshead

As the cha-cha started up, and China Forbes cast the first phrase of Amado Mio across the audience, everyone was reeled in. The syncopation and melodies of this experienced, internationally-formed mini-orchestra sparkled in the air of the auditorium.

Between songs, Thomas Lauderdale curated with playful syntax, serving up each next instalment with lateral explanations of their widely-sourced influences. Prior to the interval, Pink Martini indulged in some extended instrumentalism, with the djembe solo slightly pushing patience. 

True to a traditional format, after the break was utilised for the hits, including Let’s Never Stop Falling In Love and Je Ne Veux Pas Travailler. The addition of Hunter Noack joining the tour and performing a solo piano piece by Ravel was a glistening cherry. 

Hall 1 of The Sage has often seen battles between its formal structure and more fluid programming. Though many watching are often internally keen to oblige a request to dance, a perception of the space oppresses the necessary conviction. Tonight though, Pink Martini’s balance of implicit musical studiousness and immediate performance playfulness framed such a response as a liberation, and initiated pockets of people to rise like sunflowers throughout. The energy eventually climaxed at the end of the night in the formation of a conga line flowing like water throughout the aisles. 

[2016.09.16] for NARC Magazine.

Ceiling Demons / FUQ / The Milk Lizards - Live for ENDLESS WINDOW at The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle

Having often seen bands sloppily indulge in pastiche (convinced a self-awareness of their revivalistic practice alone speaks to some kind of genius,) it was deeply satisfying to watch The Milk Lizards modestly and carefully perform fuzzy surf instrumentals simply for the joy and spirit of that sound. The boiler-suited trio even signed-off with Misirlou; a wink that having fun was at the core here.

Having performed a riotous set for EW at The Tanner’s Arms for NARC Fest in July, tonight FUQ return with slickness tailoring the presentation. A soft spotlight illuminated the stage, and whilst Rezaei painted rhythms and vocals from her colourful MPC, Bothwell stepped in-and-out of the shadows, a microphone in one hand, a mobile phone in the other. Their neatly composed songs rode the rainbow, including pop swagger in Sins and playful disorientation of Zim Bell.

There are few performers from which a ceaseless heartfelt appreciation for life, gig-in gig-out, beams, but that affection is written so deeply within Ceiling Demons conception, even Eeyore could not frown for the optimism within their work. Ritualistically emerging from masks, CD offered another impassioned set, filling the programme with their latest single, Lost The Way, the restless beasts from their Belly Of The Hopeless EP and the euphoric anthems of yore.

[2016.09.16] for NARC Magazine.

Helen Money - Becoming Zero - Album Review

When the influence of heavier metal music married with Alison Chesley’s talents as a cellist and composer, a parallel path was opened up, to be explored as Helen Money. This fourth album under the pseudonym, Becoming Zero, continues to explore mighty and muscular sonic qualities through her compositions, though this sequence also balances more sparse and existential passages, dueting her ever-faithful central organism, an effected cello, against gently crushing piano parts. 

Composed in the wake of both of Chesley’s parents passing, this album speaks to the topic of dying, with Radiate and Vanishing Star portraying a fallout, and Facing The Sun charting a reaction that eventually diffuses. Grinding her hemi-demi-semi-quarterising bow technique in Leviathan, Chesley confronts the vitality in the one who knocks.

[2016.07.19] for NARC Magazine.

KOAN 3: Hapsburg Braganza / Paul Taylor / Zassõ Fukei / Jewel - Live at The Globe, Newcastle

For this concluding night of the KOAN trilogy, curator Martin Donkin invited some personal favourites to guide this special series around improvisation home.  

Donkin and Davey Sax (Jewel) set about calibrating ears for this more gentle instalment, with a continuous piece of saxophone / electric guitar improvisation based around Śūnyatā. The rising tides of sound inside were tonic, but mixed with the Referendum rain outside the windowpane.

After preparing the space meticulously with an array of tools, Ant Macari (Zassõ Fukei) played with the idea of communication; opposing immediate moments (cymbal-head-hit) with lengthy unveilings of written poetry, using looped music and a guitar-paintbrush.

    “the lengths we go / stone / upon stone / to remain / apart”

Introduced as someone who should be “performing on the stages around Europe,” Paul Taylor’s face was bashful, however, such a sentiment was soon proven warranted as the keys took over his form, ingeniously mixing a multitude of influences including Debussy’s Impressionism, and 70’s Fusion.     

As Phil Begg (Hapsburg Braganza) took a seat with his five-string electric, the accumulated warmth upstairs at The Globe rested gently on the faces, and, combined with the dying light, welcomed dreaming. Begg’s shimmering instrumentals lead from Lute-esque dances to slower pieces, evoking such images as sprawling cornfields, perhaps. Turning further to more abstract compositions, his confidence realised itself here, playing with the imperfections. 

[2016.06.24] for NARC Magazine.

Darren Hayman / Nev Clay - Live at The Mining Institute, Newcastle

Studying a display in the main hallway of The Mining Institute of late-19th Century photography, depicting curious social scenes, further resonated how in tune this venue was for Darren Hayman to present his most recent project, a set of songs inspired by Thankful Villages; places where every soldier returned home safely from WW1. 

Nev Clay’s winding wit was the perfect thread to pull our imagination into action at the head of this evening of story, from meandering thoughts on gravitational waves and missteps in Metal bands, through to feather-light performances of songs with intimate observations. Including a cover Women Of The World by Ivor Cutler, with its bold sentiment, sat seamlessly alongside his original work, united in a brave spirit - a faultless hallmark of Clay’s performances.  

To present this new collection, Hayman’s trio assumed the position of the pit orchestra, whilst above them, opposite the audience seating, diary footage of his visits through each of the villages was projected onto the wall. The set amalgamated unique sounds from the trip; including the metronome of Aisholt’s church clock, and recordings of poetry read by residents. The riddling songs were bracketed with Hayman’s humorous expositions of the journeys travelled to find them.

[2016.06.18] for NARC Magazine.