Lanterns On The Lake

Brudenell Social Club 26/11/11

Live music in 2011 has been dominated by American artists. For me, the excitement and innovation seems to come almost exclusively from the States. For some time there has been a developing movement of songwriters who have embraced the issues of the time and churned the legacy of Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Bob Dylan into a contemporary melting pot that we call Americana. It is characteristically confessional, often involving just a bearded man and a guitar.

Equally as wide and meaningless as a label is the so-called British ‘nu-folk’ movement comprising bands who draw on the legacies of John Martyn and Sandy Denny and who eschew the American wide-screen for the black and white portable  - more DH Lawrence than William Faulkner, implied bohemianism as opposed to American Gothic. It gets complicated when an artist’s reading  material sits mid-Atlantic so I won’t go THERE just yet.

With Lanterns On The Lake we are automatically in uncertain territory. Six VERY young people from Newcastle who have recently released a highly ambitious album .... for which the adjective ‘cinematic’ was made for – and on the Bella Union label – itself an industry kite mark of quality. They sound like their name. 

They have a ghostly quality, the songs starting imperceptibly with just a flurry of instruments and vocals but eventually giving way to a growing swell of sound that shines light on the earlier fog. Four of the six play drums at some stage and a mournful violin underpins their very Englishness. Paul Gregory on guitar is a compelling sight, stamping his left foot furiously but generating soaring other-worldly sounds, often with the help of a violin bow which by the end is almost shredded.

For all the subtlety, the Lanterns’ drum sound is immense, at times almost tribal in its intensity. The colours and shapes that this contrast creates on songs such as .... and ... point to a potential that could see them become a very big name indeed.

So, almost at the death, when I’d nearly given up hope, a British band to give the Americans a run for their money. 

Suuns/ Besnard Lakes

Deaf Institute, Manchester 18/11/11

I don’t go to gigs on my own out of choice, having someone along to share the experience is always preferable. But I value my solitude and I can think of no better environment to free myself of ‘life’ than a concert at which I don’t know anyone and I don’t have to worry about anyone but myself. No positioning to be bothered about or fetching drinks from the bar – just in and out and a chance to concentrate on the music. I’m clearly not alone in this. I always spot men (it’s always men) doing the same thing  - we are no longer ashamed. I rarely pass on the chance to see a band because I don’t have anyone to go with.

So a double bill of Suuns and the Besnard Lakes was a must see at the Deaf Institute in Manchester last Friday. I’d seen both bands before – Canadians who channel a multitude of influences from 70s psychedelia, Beach Boys harmonies and, in the case of Suuns, dance beats that also echo the likes of The Cure and  Joy Division. The music scene is littered with artists who draw on fragments of this and that and end up re-cycling rather than re-inventing but both these bands have a very new and vibrant message to convey. I get there just before 9pm, as Suuns are plugging in their equipment.

The Deaf Institute is a second floor former lecture theatre with a bank of seats to the right and a huge glitter ball that hangs low from the vaulted ceiling. A bar down the side means that with around 150 people it feels full. I’m about six feet from the tiny stage. The last time I’d seen Suuns at the Green Man Festival in August they were shrouded in dry ice so it’s curious to see how young and fresh-faced they actually are. Their music is dark and broody and they play six songs in 30 minutes -  intense but propulsive and utterly addictive in its developing crescendos and climaxes. A new song (no.4) builds and builds, seemingly comprised of around four or five contrasting suites, gathering pace and then finishing in a volcanic overspill of energy. Breathless stuff.

A few Suuns fans leave, which is a shame as Besnard Lakes are cut from the same cloth. A bit older and more chilled out their songs are tightly structured anthems that make use of  Jace Lasek's startling falsetto. He is a dead ringer for Ian Hunter but even Mott The Hoople didn’t generate this degree of concentrated intensity. I’ve seldom seen a drummer hit so hard and towards the climax of  'Chicago Train' I fear for the structural integrity of the riser. An excessive use of dry ice means that the band is shrouded in fog for much of the set but as it clears they set their sights on another full throttle finale and deliver it with a huge combination of noise and lights. There is an ambition and an intellectual weight to this band  - I can imagine them gathering together later to discuss the finer points of Ulysses or Crime and Punishment over a bottle of chilled Chablis rather than engaging in the usual post-gig routine.

I leave as I arrived, on my own, ears ringing, happy.

St Vincent

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 16/11/11

Living in Leeds I am blessed with a great small live music venue, the Brudenell Social Club. Thanks to good management in recent years it’s built a reputation for staging an imaginative range of artists, many before they break into the big time. It’s an old fashioned place in a traditional (now mainly student) part of the city which down the years has no doubt staged a fair number of stand up comedians and strippers.  It holds about 400 in a split level arrangement. If you get down on the floor and away from the bar you can be pretty sure of being in the company of people who have come to see and listen to the band, rather than have an amplified conversation about their dog or whatever, as so often seems to be the case at larger venues.

I saw Fleet Foxes at the Brudenell in June 2008 and it was a hushed, almost transcendental experience. Artists seem to thrive on the intimacy and the fantastic acoustics and it has the right ambience and feel to it that can only come from the natural rapport that seems to be generated between band and audience.

I’d only heard St Vincent about a week ago and snapped up a couple of the last remaining tickets at the weekend after reading this review in The Observer:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/13/st-vincent-live-review-london

 There is so much new music around these days coming from so many different directions that it’s  difficult to assimilate it all. So I went to see St Vincent without spending any time with their latest album but safe in the knowledge that what I had heard was strikingly confident, the video below making me laugh out loud. For ‘they’ read ‘her’. Annie Clark is an astoundingly gifted vocalist and guitarist and it is her image and persona which sells the band.

The Brudenell is sold out and we gently edge our way down to the front to take up position stage right. When she gets underway it’s clear that St Vincent have spent a bit more time and money on the sound and lighting than your average band. It’s a proper show, with a well rehearsed feel to it. The sound is impeccable, the rim shots ricochet around the place and big fat squelchy synths underpin a vaguely 80s feel.  

But it’s Clark’s show  and she reels off a succession of bullet-like solos. Her vocals are crystalline. Only her between-song banter betrays any hint of nerves. Her lyrics are intense and personal :-

I spent the summer on my back
And over attack
Steal you just to get along
Get along
(Surgeon)

The feeling is one of a band and artist with a strong set of songs that will tour well next year and continue to tap into the mode of music that straddles genres, which refuses to be pigeon-holed.

Towards the end she jumps into the crowd for a couple of minutes of gratuitous audience contact. It’s a familiar ego-levelling ploy these days which, analysed as such, probably means the reverse is true.  No matter, St Vincent have put on a grand 80 minute show of funky electroclash dance rhythms and ethereal mind-bending ballads and – as is so often the case with Brudenell gigs – I leave with the feeling that they will have outgrown this type and size of venue very soon.

Steve Earle - old country troubador

Leeds Irish Centre 10/11/11

It says a 7.30pm start on the ticket so I get there at 8.00pm only to find the place silent, full and listening attentively to an acoustic Steve Earle who has been on stage precisely 30 minutes. The Leeds Irish Centre is a split level arrangement. One look towards the front persuades me to settle for a place at the back but the crowd chatter once the quiet song ends and a louder one begins means I can’t stay there so I muscle my way apologetically towards the front and luckily bump into the people I’d arranged to meet. I reflect on the way  gigs now seem to run to schedule and berate myself for failing to remember that this is one of Earle’s marathon ensemble appearances – his version of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder in which he showcases the talents of his travelling band, including his wife Alison Moorer.

When I last saw Earle in 2009 in a solo concert at the city’s Grand Theatre he’d remarked that the Irish Centre was one of his favourite venues – a boisterous and no holds barred atmosphere perfect for his Celtic Americana. He is an enigma, with the prison record and history of near death addiction authenticity that many gravelled-voiced singer songwriters around today can only replicate in works of fiction. His subtle voice and delicate guitar playing convey political messages that speak for the minorities. He would be the natural successor to Johnny Cash if he wasn’t also his partial contemporary. In short, Earle is the real deal and treats his audiences with a respect and generosity that screams gratitude for the success as a musician, writer and actor that the last twelve years of a clean and sober life have brought him.

Live performers of Earle’s experience trust their audience. They have a confidence which means they don’t feel the need to please at every turn. This means the sound is quite low, so that the subtlety of the playing and the component parts of the band shine through. And what a band. Earle describes them as the ‘best fucking band I’ve ever stood in front of’, reminding me of Springsteen’s description of playing with the E Street Band as like being handed the keys to a Ferrari. As this is the final date of a world tour that started in June, there seems to be a special telepathy and an assurance that only comes from a mutual understanding and conviction in the material.

It’s a mainly grizzled, middle aged audience but his best known songs get even these people of a certain age jumping around – ‘Copperhead Road’, ‘Galway Girl’, 'Guitar Town'. All the band members take centre stage at some point, including Moorer who has a voice to rank with the best. Earle sets the scene for a few songs, extolling the virtues of the Trade Union movement at one point and describing how he got involved in acting and writing songs for the TV series ‘Treme’.  Even with an interval they play for nearly three hours but it never drags – an air-punching climax of ‘The Revolution Starts Now’ and a heartbreaking ‘Fort Worth Blues’ and it’s unreasonable to expect them to come back for more but they do before then departing for a final time.

One of the great things about the new ‘troubadour’ movement is the oxygen it’s provided for performers of Earle’s generation. He hasn’t changed, of course, but the demand for analogue-derived, old-fashioned music which celebrates the heritage of people like Hank Williams and Townes van Zandt is spawning a period of great creativity – his son Justin Townes Earle is also making a real name for himself on the new country circuit. America has reclaimed its roots and in so doing has re-energised the live UK music scene, the re-birth of folk providing the very British parallel. It all makes for the most diverse live music scene for a generation, a melting pot of old and new, an evolving source of inspiration and excitement.

My Morning Jacket - cosmic country behemoths

My Morning Jacket paint with wide brushstrokes on big blank canvasses.  They tackle huge themes and their songs question the meaning of existence.   They are the Jacson Pollock of rock music, its Moby Dick. OK, they are just a band but they execute ideas above their station, they write about the universe and the spirit and elevate the modern music form with an ambition that translates into enormous and powerful live experiences. 

A typical MMJ song will start with a throbbing drum beat or just the merest touch of an acoustic guitar, the vocals will be echo-laden  and there will be fuzz and psychedelic nuances that point to a range of influences beyond their Kentucky roots.  The spaces will be gradually filled in and the song will take on many forms, finally depositing the listener in a cathartic mess.

But there isn’t really a typical MMJ song, sometimes to the annoyance of the older fans who love the dream-country of the first couple of albums and who are aghast as they’ve flirted of late with Prince and Moroder rhythms, reggae, funk and air-punching pop.

Whatever  - the MMJ shows I saw over two nights recently offer something for everyone and even though it may be the heads-down rock and roll which is the abiding memory, the interludes of pastoral bliss  - near silence even - mean that it is a truly diverse experience, highly intelligent music for the modern era played with an old-fashioned work ethic.

Leeds showcases their latest album ‘Circuital’. The album deals with abstract ideas involving fate and karma and, musically, is seen as a harking back to their most critically lauded records – largely free from the experimentation of its predecessor – ‘Evil Urges’ – an album that annoyed quite a few people.

Jim James - the front man and songwriter – wastes no time in indulging his showmanship on the opener ‘Victory Dance’ and by the end he is the shamanic rain dancer, arms in the air, spinning in circles and pivoting on one leg. The sound is incredible, especially the bass which is trouser wobbling loud – and this one of the more restrained songs. There is texture, however, with acoustic guitar, pedal steel and keyboards layering a sheen of complexity over the phenomenal engine room of bass and drums. James’s voice is a thing of wonder, ranging from an eerie falsetto to a dull growl. Their love of guitar breakdowns is indulged on ‘Off The Record’, a call to arms that climaxes over about five glorious minutes of power chords and distortion.  The stage dynamics are thrilling and even now, just three songs in, I know this is a very special band.

Manchester the following night follows a different template with new songs not heard at Leeds and back catalogue rarities ‘Phone Went West’ and ‘Steam Engine’.  I’m always impressed by bands who, in the middle of a long tour, play each song as if it was the first and last time –not just professionalism and stage craft but an authentic belief in what they are doing. Both gigs climax with ‘Holdin’ On To Black Metal’ and ‘One Big Holiday’ – exhilarating and frenetic bursts of light and noise that have the crowds jumping dementedly.

My Morning Jacket are indeed the floor to ceiling canvass, the cosmic leviathan of American rock music who continually demonstrate they will not stay in one place, even if their elemental live shows bring it all back to the basics of rock and roll. This is fine by me. I lose interest quickly in artists who repeat the formula. Change is good. Best to just go with the flow and enjoy the restlessness that sparks the creativity.

Leeds setlist
Victory Dance
Circuital
I'm Amazed
Off The Record
It Beats 4U
At Dawn
Wonderful
Outta My System
First Light
I Will Sing You Songs
Golden
Smokin' From Shootin'
Touch Me I'm Going To Scream (Pt 2)
What A Wonderful Man
Mahgeetah

Encore
Movin' Away
Wordless Chorus
The Day Is Coming
Holdin' On To Black Metal
One Big Holiday

Wilco

In search of the band that incorporates everything I am not alone in fastening on Wilco. Over the years after they started out as a straight ahead country-ish rock group and through a phase of experimentation to the present day they have travelled an arc which has been at times infuriating but never dull. Today, they seem to have reached a creative peak that will leave them still largely unknown by the vast majority of music customers, decried by some who see them as selling out their Americana roots but embraced by those, like me, who enjoy bands that never rest on their laurels and who offer that rare combination of the cerebral and the visceral. My Morning Jacket are another such outfit  and while many more aspire to this level of accomplishment, without the creative vision of an enigmatic band leader there will always be a gap that separates them from this small 


I was at two of their recent UK shows  – Manchester and London. On the back of their album ‘The Whole Love’ they are showcasing a clutch of new songs which extend their open-minded template even further (one track is even called ‘Open Mind’) but which are still rooted in the classic pop sensibilities that make their live concerts such air-punching events. For those that prefer the reflective to the celebratory, both these shows were pivoted around daring moments of introspection  - the signs of a group with confidence in themselves and their audience and in the powerful live connection which they have established.

So, claiming a band to have ‘everything’ is a wild overstatement of course. It’s a pointless task trying to convert anyone to anything but if ever a body of work can stand up to that claim it is that of Wilco. Their sound derives from no single souce but from an amalgam of influences that include the Velvet Underground, Neil Young and Radiohead. The leader and songwriter – Jeff Tweedy – has a warm, velevet voice quite similar to Neil Finn but lyrically he is on his own. He said recently that his writing is now about getting older and dealing better with ambiguity and the songs on the new album absolutely reflect that. Nothing is literal, the intelligence is oblique, the message is personal, there is a human uncertainty with which I identify. A psychoanalyst would have a field day with a set of his words but the imagery he uses to adorn them defies interrogation. He will offer a chink of light, only to slam the door on your foot. Even a seemingly straightforward ode to happiness (‘Whole Love’) contains shards of self doubt that casts shade on the light. Wilco’s albums have got steadily happier, reflecting Tweedy’s personal circumstances. When he lets go of the songs and gifts them to the band, they acquire a substance which adds weight and substance to the recorded material.

The London show starts with the 12 minute, largely acoustic ‘One Sunday Morning’ – a reflection on the relationship between father and son. It has a repetitive guitar figure that gradually spirals around my brain, dreamy and rhythmic. Each syllable is fat with meaning. The stage is bathed in purple light and the huge Roundhouse venue is like a church. 


As the set gathers pace we see another side of Wilco – the pop group which revels in the power chord. All is executed with rare panache – Nels Cline is a gripping sight, wringing the notes from his guitar, entirely zoned-out, seemingly on the verge of an epileptic fit. The three-pronged electric guitar denoument to ‘Impossible Germany’ is a powerful and exhilarating highlight – every component part locking into place. The drumming of Glenn Kotche ranges from the skittish and delicate to the animalistic. Both he and Cline are renowned avante garde musicians with extensive solo catalogues and you get the feeling that whatever Tweedy throws their way will be taken comfortably in the stride. There is no contradiction in Wilco’s electro/ country contradictions, only that they are able to straddle those extremes and the genres in between with a confidence that defies convenient definition.

At both shows the gorgeous melody of ‘Via Chicago’ is buffeted by sequences of percussive turbulence that finally give way to uplifting harmonics that just soar to the ceiling, and what can only be described as detonations which seem to threaten the fabric of the building punctuate the Krautrock influenced ‘The Art Of Almost’ – a song that encapsulates the Wilco thing of occupying the spaces in between, the unsaid, the unknown. This is where the indefinable magic is made - where the ambiguity is brought into the light and new ground is broken.

Towards the climax the pace is unrelenting and the encores just fly by, with pop veteran Nick Lowe joining them for a song in London. Both shows have seen them up the ante from their tour 12 months ago. The new songs have added texture and elegance and enabled them to span the commercial and experimental opposites of their repertoire without compromise. Both audiences respond enthusiastically to the old crowd pleasers – ‘A Shot In The Arm’, ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’, ‘I’m The Man Who Loves You’  - and spine-tingling as these power pop nuggets are I’ve found my own highlights in new songs such as ‘Rising Red Lung’ and ‘Open Mind’.

So Wilco are the whole package, the whole love. Tweedy isn’t an especially endearing figure but he has integrity and honesty. He is also the leader of a band who are setting the bar for live music experiences, steering the juggernaut down an unambiguous path to greatness.