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.