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.

Crystal Castles - Amnesty - Album Review

Crystal Castle’s fourth album Amnesty further embraces the bitter-sweet side of their nature. Though the riotous skewed banging aspects of their debut (and follow-ups) are still hinted at in tracks like Enth and Concrete, compositional choices are more reigned in here, and an ever slicker production makes this latest record their most comfortable listening long-play experience. New vocalist Edith Frances’ gentler delivery compliments this direction too. 

Though Amnesty veils Crystal Castle’s more unpredictable aggressive expressions, their melodic artillery that delivers the agony and ecstasy is promoted to the frontline. This coherent playlist builds from melancholic yearnings, including the single Char, to a euphoric finale - the bliss of Kept, and then the sweat and morning reality of Their Kindness Is Charade.

[2016.06.18] for NARC Magazine.

Mbongwana Star / Estère - Live at Hall 2, The Sage, Newcastle

Quickly appearing behind her dashboard of electronics, Estère confidently took the early birds in Hall 2 straight to the heart of her funk; a jam built with bold, brassy and frivolous sounds from her MPC. Splashed in colourful lights, her unabashed and expressive dance moves whipped her pop around the room, flipping speculators over into new-found appreciators. 

From hearing some of their From Kinshasa album prior to this performance, you would be forgiven for not expecting such a rock spirit to Mbongwana Star’s show, but constantly sourcing attention amongst the complex polyrhythms was Liam Farrell’s (Doctor L) guitar: possibly the warmest distortion tones I have heard emerge from an SG.

Dressed in varieties of black clothing, sporting leathers (and in one case, a cheeky green wig) the quintet occupied a certain appreciation for ‘rock-band’ sensibilities, but paralleled that inspiration with songs made fluid through Afro-folk harmonies and rhythms. Dance was the only disposition possible by the third song in, streaming from the five distinct personalities on the stage, out to the venue floor where a wave of happy, smiling movers and shakers could not be broken from the spell. C’est bon? Theo Nzonza checked between songs. C’est tres bien! said the brow-sweat and sore soles at the close.

[2016.06.11] for NARC Magazine.

Super Furry Animals / Ffug - Live at Northumbria University Union, Newcastle

NUU was steadily buzzing, filled almost to capacity at the beginning of the night, as Ffug offered a boring support set sadly their own enthusiasm for could not leaven. 

Out of a pulsating blue flush on the stage, with matching heartbeat, SFA, in their white coveralls, blossomed with Slow Life and Ice Hockey Hair. As the set progressed, drawing from a catalogue reaching back from as far as the mid-90s, these present performances further clarified the strength in the design and imagination of that songwriting; strong melodies and textures that sound fresh and positive today. 

Rhys’ vocals really cut through the PA tonight. At the coda of Run Christian Run, the overlaying cries cleansed like a waterfall. The sonic experience was married with typically playful visual idiosyncrasies, such as laser lights, queue cards and costumes; often registering as absurd and glorious, but somehow never contrived.

After a string of hits, including Juxtaposed With You and Receptacle For The Respectable, SFA finish with The Man Don’t Give A Fuck. As the troop return to the stage with a reprise of that song’s ever-relevant chorus, Rhys raises his final placard with ‘Resist Phoney Encores’ on it, marking out a dignified exit for this band which show no evidence of rust.

[2016.04.23] for NARC Magazine.

Ditte Elly / Caoilfhionn Rose - Live At Trinity Chuch, Gosforth, Newcastle

After many years developing her songwriting, 2016 is the year Ditte Elly is finally ready to gift us her debut album, ‘Songs.’ Elly greeted attendees personally at the entrance of Trinity Church in Gosforth; the pews inside slowly but surely filling up for the celebration.
    

Caoilfhionn Rose’s sombre songs roused the flame of the night, with her musical partner Mitch Williams fleshing them out with gentle and reverberated electric guitar tones.

Elly’s set (split in two for a bar-break in the middle) was built almost completely from the new album. The performance utilised many of the ‘Fables’ musicians; sometimes altogether, and at other times with select members adding an instrument to the texture. Adam Coopers clarinet worked particularly well with Elly’s voice on the song Red.

Having formed close collaborative relationships with both Rosie Caldecott in Oxfordshire, as well as with Matt Stalker in her adopted North-East home, tonight’s performance was the first time that these talented musicians all shared a stage. Their voices melted as closely as true friendship.

With every detail of this evening infused with Elly’s class and character, this landmark is surely the prologue of someone who has the content to build a library.

[2016.03.12] for NARC Magazine.

Pentecostal Party - Let’s Storm Heaven - Single Review

Dawn Bothwell’s project Pentecostal Party is born of her interest “in the type of euphoric high you experience in groups of people worshiping together: an experience that is both solitary and collective.”

   

This tape-recorded version of Let’s Storm Heaven off-sets two layers; a creeping pulse established with a prominent hi-hat and light analogue synth on the surface, whilst the ear is more and more drawn to what lurks in the depths, the yearning and relentless army of voices plotting beneath.

Music can be loved for an infinite amount of reasons, but the behaviour that I find particularly special about Pentecostal Party’s music is the way it unlocks depths through deceptively simple, minimalist structure.

Small synth lines and repeated phrases map the contours of her songs, but as a listener you are compelled to imagine the terrain. The music’s majesty reveals itself like a magic-eye picture, or faces forming in tree-bark.

[2016.03.12] for NARC Magazine.

Ditte Elly - Had Me From The Start - Single Review

Taken from her recent debut album, the song Had Me From The Start reflects the lighter and brighter side of Elly’s writing.

The choice to double-track her lead vocal in unison throughout the recording removes a deeper vulnerability that could sadden the mood of this track, but here, the love being described is one that has been invited-in to consume the narrators’ heart; a celebration! This joyous expression is further emphasised with a chorus of backing vocals finding ever more energy throughout the song; like springtime bringing more and more colour with flowers.   

Elly modestly explains “I just really enjoy singing it, so I hope people enjoy listening and want to tap their feet along.”

Though written three years ago, the gleeful spirit, in Elly’s strummed classical guitar and Adam Kent’s spritely electronic sounds, marries the optimism around this blossoming time in Elly’s life as a songwriter.

[2016.03.12] for NARC Magazine

Matt Stalker & Fables / Jason Thompson - Live At The Mining Institute, Newcastle

Long-term fans, and a healthy amount of family and friends, entered The Mining Institute, in elegant attire, to salvage a last meal with Matt Stalker & Fables; a concert promoted as a ‘swan-song’ and a celebration of the group’s eight years together (in various incarnations.)

Jason Thompson’s film about the making of the band’s final record, Knots, started proceedings downstairs in the auditorium, and offered both a way for those close to the music to reflect, as well as a good entry point for others to the attitudes and ideas of the musicians ahead of their farewell show. 

The Moses Choreography started the main feature in the hall upstairs, with a quartet of strings, including Jenny Nendick’s cello backing Stalker’s crisp and spritely vocal. The rest of the band then joined in, delivering impeccable arrangements, as if writing type on the air with a fountain pen. Ditte Elly’s rich voice was wisely promoted in a number of these newer compositions from a duetting backing vocal to sharing dialoguing lead-lines. 

With confidence overflowing Stalker’s chalice, I doubt this evening symbolises any real conclusion for his own writing, but a breath for him and his friends to try other adventures for a while.  

[2016.02.20] for NARC Magazine.

The Shooting Of… (Paul Jeans) - Analogue Heart - Album Review

With his first album as The Shooting Of, Paul Jeans is putting on a theatrical show; taking the listener up with the ups, and holding our hands through bitterness and heartache. 

Melodies are the blood of every song, from big choruses, as in Captain Of My Soul, to small moments in an arrangement, such as the ‘robot-synth’ part in This Silence Is Killing Me. His voice, both solo or as a self-harmonising stentor, delivers with a range of tones.

The production is punchy throughout, supporting the bold outlook in the songwriting. Nods to Art-Pop influences such as Bowie and Gabriel catch the ear from time-to-time, further showing Jeans’ appreciation for music and joie de vivre.

[2016.02.15] for NARC Magazine.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs / Bismuth / Apologies / Supertunes - Live at The Cluny, Newcastle

Supertunes had super-fans down early to the Cluny pit. A much more exciting prospect than their name would suggest, this opening quartet brought bass-lead progressions infused with elements of trip-hop. Their vocalist operated as an instrumentalist, offering further abstraction with distant atmospheric lines.

A tight classic-rock riff modestly starts up the Apologies engine. Various hooks follow morphing through free and wild variations. The trio’s music delights by off-setting changing textures and resonances against solid central themes. Tightening and loosening were used to great effect. 

The courtesy of Tanya Burne muting her bass to tune before the set was cute as, alongside Joe Rawling’s on drums, Bismuth proceeded to take EVERY MOLECULE IN THE AIR HOSTAGE WITH THEIR TECTONIC SHIFTS. Dividing appreciation like thunder, portions of the audience were hypnotised by the might, whilst others ran from the unknown.

The porcine pageantry was unleashed as PigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigs embarked on Psychopomp to crown the night. This composition has it all, and with each twist and turn, rest is definitely left for the dead. Matt Baty’s majesty was undeniable throughout, singing with full vigour, hanging from railings, topless.

Like the best nights, the total narrative was stronger than the sum of its chapters and we have Leave Me Here to thank for that.

[2016.01.29] for NARC Magazine.

Josephine Foster - No More Lamps In The Morning - Album Review

Josephine Foster possesses a voice of the other; itself, forever travelling, and those who hear it are always catching up on its beauty. Her fourteenth album from the Millennium, No More Lamps In The Morning is made up of new raw versions of seven songs from previous recording’s (with two songs even originally from her last album.) The idea might seem unnecessary on paper, but to have these songs, sitting more freely within seemingly more intuitive retakes (captured in the studio with the lightest of butterfly nets,) gifts us a close-up on the essences that we love the most. The Garden Of Earthly Delights is a highlight with her husband Herrero’s shimmering guitar like sunlight to her peaceful melody.

[2016.01.18] for NARC Magazine.

Roller Trio / Leash - Live At The Bridge Hotel, Newcastle

In the charming upstairs room at The Bridge Hotel, the Jazz North East team are poking the stage lights into position with broom sticks whilst the opening trio Leash debate a few last minute form possibilities. 

Adrian Tilbrook, first up to the Gretch Kit, started this night under a different banner six years ago. Paul Bream and friends have now taken over the reigns, keeping its life-blood bellowed. 

With unison whole-tone fusion grooves blended with a peppering of rockier references, Leash play one-extended instrumental for their set, twisting improvisation through thematic check-points. Loyal lights of the club, Andy Champion and Mark Williams, excelled; certain scaling passages were performed with fingers too quick for any eye.     

Roller Trio punched heavy from the off, blasting out the Eastern tones in RollerToaster and ripping up hyper beats in Doris. Though the records utilise lighter and clearer tones, their live sound is powerful for its extra breadth. Redfin-Williams’ rides ring out more, Mainwaring’s saxophone wails longer, and Winter’s guitar sound is spread with a rich fatness in the bass pitches. By the end, January sorrows had been blasted from all faces. The room was a pressure-cooker of energy. Everyone was left hot! hot! hot! 

[2016.01.10] for NARC Magazine.

Nathalie Stern / Competition - Live for ENDLESS WINDOW at The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle

For their eighth and end-of-year chapter, Endless Window have brought together two artists who share a common ground in the way they perform their music; each utilising looped motifs through various ways of sampling to structure their content. 

The stage upstairs at the Cumberland Arms, in stark contrast to the cacophony of instruments and equipment covering it last month, is bare, except for a central podium stand; a table of technology draped in rich blue velvet. Unified at this lectern, in a blue macintosh, Craig Pollard, as Competition, starts his set.

The last time I saw Pollard perform solo he engaged with his instruments and effects at floor level which framed our musician as submissive and jittery as he searched for relevant knobs and devices on the ground, but tonight, by standing up tall to perform, with all of his sound playground apparatus at an accessible distance from his digits, the deeper vulnerability expressed in his music could be shown through his own confidence, as masterfully engineered quotation, without the audience being drawn to Pollard’s own practical stage concerns. His voice and lyrics sit delicately and deep inside the dense textures he samples for his loops, emphasising the delicate character of his voice more than the clarity of every word. 

Competition’s penultimate song, the project title-track, is a perfect encapsulation of melancholic confusion, and you could see it reaching inside the hearts of the focussed faces in the audience tonight. In contrast, the last song had a delightfully bouncy beat which was married with a soliloquy charting an existential crisis of a distracted mind. The song’s narrator kept returning to the burning question: “Seriously - when will I get a dog?”

Substituting the podium with blue velvet for a synth stand of her own (this one adorned with a cape sporting a green, red and yellow flower design) Nathalie Stern opened with a slow drone and steadily interjected vocal phrases. Her presence was instantly commanding and the unique texture of her voice took hold of the space with its characteristic spirit of strength and darkness. Using multiple loop-stations and a Korg synthesiser, she blended her first few songs into one another, with a particularly furtive chant using harsh Anglo-Saxon consonants. Midway through the set, coyly asking the audience for permission to play an instrumental, Stern then turned to her synth and embarked upon building up a fuzzy four-bar phrase; a tune which would not be out of place accompanying fantasy adventures. 

In this self-described ‘second phase’ of her songwriting, Stern’s composition focusses even more around the voice, with these recent performances not involving any guitar orchestration that the previous period had. This direction feels perfectly whole in a new way. The duplication of her own voice with impeccably chosen harmonies, fills the sound, and holds more power in an unshared air. Tonight, once more her bold music, balanced with her natural charm on stage, has fresh and seasoned admirers seduced alike.

The evening’s designer Mark Corcoran-Lettice swiftly followed up on the positive mood hanging in the air after Stern’s set, by launching straight into the disco portion of the evening, which brought a modest, but exuberant, amount of wigglin’ hips to the dance floor, and kept them there with songs by (to name a few) The Breeders, KLF and Kendrick Lamar. For the closing track at 12-o-clock, our DJ summoned the Gainsbourg/ Birkin duet Je T’aime; a gentle and respectfully playful nod to French culture, love and life.

[2015.11.20] for NARC Magazine.

Warm Digits with Filmbee / co￥ﾡpt / Pentecostal Party - Live at Northern Stage, Newcastle

Following on from supporting Razmataz Lorry Excitement’s Without album launch, Claire Dupree, in the name of NARC Magazine, once again utilised the space at Northern Stage, to give a band close to her heart an unrestricted stage to play with.

After a break from performing over the summer, Warm Digits (Steve Jefferis and Andrew Hodson) recently popped down the road to play at Leeds’ Recon Festival in October. Now, the Distraction Records duo return to Newcastle to give their home fans something new. As well as a set written to include recently recorded tunes, they are also relinquishing their light-show element of the show, to give way to collaborate with the film co-operative FilmBee, who will shape the display of visuals for this upcoming evening. 

In terms of the programme, Jefferis explained that Warm Digits were keen to have other acts on the bill that were doing interesting things with electronic music currently. From Pentecostal Party and co￥ﾡpt’s recent output, their inclusion on the bill certainly seems to marry this desire.     

A healthy crowd circulate downstairs in the Stage 3 venue at Northern Stage, shortly after the doors are opened, and lively chatter and the clinking of glasses is lacquering the air. Walking into the space, you discover gorgeous old Elf projectors sitting a-top of wooden platforms, whilst busy members of FilmBee’s team sweep clothes-hangers of film strips into position, ready for their collaboration with the headline act: the promise of Warm Digits’ ever-evolving spectacle supported immediately for those attending, and anticipation blossoms into excitement.

Fading up the outline kicks of what will develop into Night & Day, Dawn Bothwell as Pentecostal Party subtly develops the outline of the beat on her table of toys as the house lights fall. Behind her, a projection screen fills the back wall behind the stage, and a video loops the slithering of an intimidatingly large blue eel underwater. Pentecostal Party uses rigidity in the rhythms of her songs which carve out, what feels like, the blue-prints of physical architecture with which she sits the more vulnerable centre of her music inside: her vocal chants and reimagining stanzas. 

Pentecostal Party’s previous show for the Halloween Hauskonzert put a spell on the upstairs room at The Old Police House in Gateshead recently, with a packed room of people engaged with its heartbeat and cathartic yearning melodies. Tonight, due to a contrasting space and performance time, similar material was digested more reflectively from most of the crowd, with some attendees ignorantly continuing to prioritise the sound of their own voice over someone who actually had something to offer.

Highlights of the set included Lets Storm Heaven, with Bothwell fully immersed, one hand reaching up to the ceiling as she refrained the call-to-arms. At the close, percussion was removed as synthesised chords looped, and improvised melodies were played with, fading this unbroken streaming seance into silence.

Riding high off the back of performing at Manchester’s Algorave event at Texture last night, the live-coding spirit of Sean Cotterill, co￥ﾡpt (pronounced co-opt,) was still restless and keen to dance. Armed at his laptop, (Sunn O))) T-shirt holding his hand,) Cotterill set about creating his set, using phrases of computer code to grow and manipulate sounds and images. The language of his instructions were projected in real-time, whilst other shapes and images were mixed into the canvas, also at his command. 

His improvisation started with swelling chords, with percussion elements slowly entering the fray. Unusual words like ‘Buf’ and ‘pwhite’ built steadily in different colours of the rainbow behind him and slowly but surely the audience partially ingested the links between the visual language Cotterill was speaking and the sounds they were hearing. This first section enjoyed a half-time feel with lots of hemi-demi-semi-definition made up of small clicks and fuzzes. Certain visual motifs were established on the backdrop too, including mosaics of black triangles streaming, and cuboid lines intersecting. After a while of what was a steadily unfolding landscape, a more vigorous style was programmed kicking out the previous scene and from here on in Cotterill moved quickly through various progressive movements. Though the sounds were very different to traditional set-ups, the flow was in the spirit of progressive rock or fusion jazz improvisations. Alongside this playful sonic confidence, the visuals became more dynamic, with the original triangle motifs collapsing together and expanding, as if they were a beating heart.

As the co￥ﾡpt set came to its dramatic finish with ripped up bassy sounds, Cotterill shook his two fists at chest level in triumph; a feeling very much understood by those watching, themselves noticeably thrilled.

The crowd moved forward, embracing the gap of space in front of stage as the main feature took position. Lights circulated around the skin of Hodson’s bass-drum, projected out from the kick. With a quick nod to one another, Warm Digits were off! They opened boldly with Wireless World and then the optimism of Working For A Better Future, with its joyful skipping beat, and Jefferis’ sweet melody lines. 

Though shoulders and two-steps were grooving from the beginning of the set, it was by the time the funk bass of one of their more recent offerings, End Times, came around a few tracks into the set, the waves of movement in the room were banishing all thoughts of an outside world; their groove was in the marrow of every bone, and their imagination leading everyone. 

Throughout, the duo linked songs, maintaining the momentum, which they utilise as an important foundation upon which to build their musical textures. This sense of travel has also become one of the great attractions of their sonic identity, taken to a further, more literal interpretation, on their material for the Half Memory project. Sometimes they melted tracks together with a seamless blending of motifs, and at other times they enjoyed looping and degrading the last breaths of the previous tune before excitedly entering a new track, with a new style, and a new athletic movement. This sonic relentlessness is paralleled by Hudson’s performance throughout, which speaks to endurance. With uplighting around his drum-kit, the drama in his facial expressions and flying limbs were given added distinction. 

Towards the end of the set, the hyper scaling of Weapons Destruction started, and joyous fans made the floor bounce at the realisation; some with arms raised in the air, others hooking embraces around friends. 

FilmBee intertwined their sumptuous visuals around Warm Digits’ music across this special occasion, creating symbolic and textured film-loops on two additionally erected screens. Some of the shapes resembled Cy Twombly circles, whilst others included broader paint marks. Not only did the progressing visuals interact with the music, but both the left and right screens developed relative to one another as well, all skilfully edited live at the two stations at the back of the room. 

It’s not often two separate encores are genuinely coerced from a band, but tonight everyone was in WD’s plane as the wheels left the ground and nobody felt like coming down so the architects of flight kindly kept on going a little longer, finishing with two older classics, including One Trash Groove. Though most of FilmBee’s accompanying work had been more abstract for the evening, in this final coda, humour and tenderness were summoned, with a section of film depicting a very sweet little guinea pig.

With its combination of acts, the evening felt like a celebration of shape, space and angles explored through various styles of music and visuals, performed by artists who possess the skills to go deep within these topics. The thoughtful curation elevated each glorious part to a greater sum.

[2015.11.13] for NE:MM Magazine.