Midlake kick of their contribution to the Late Night Tales compilation series with tracks from the cream of the UK folk scene of the 1960s and 1970s including the likes of Steeleye Span’s ‘The Blacksmith’, Fairport Convention’s ‘Genesis Hall’, the short-lived Bread, Love And Dreams (‘Time’s The Thief’) and the equally obscure (though apparently now reformed) Comus with ‘Diana’.

Midlake - Late Night Tales

Scott Walker’s ‘Copenhagen’ lends some gravitas to things before the compilers wade in with the set’s trademark cover (in this instance a version of Black Sabbath’s ‘Am I Going Insane?’) at which point the selections take a more modern route with inclusions from Bjork (‘Unravel’) and Beach House (‘Silver Soul’) before once more returning to folk with the unmistakable fragility of Sandy Denny singing ‘Carnival’.

With ‘Christine’s Tune’ from The Flying Burrito Brothers the tempo of the release picks up somewhat but, as this isn’t a set that’s been selected with a late night of wildness in mind, things chill out straight after with Jan Duindam (we’re into seventies Dutch folk territory now) and ‘Happiness & Tears’ after which there’s a sprinkling of Phil Spector-like pop on the folk with Twice As Much (featuring Vashti Bunyan) contributing ‘Coldest Night Of The Year’.

Nico enunciates her way through ‘These Days’ as the end of the disc comes into view before The Band plod through ‘Whispering Pines’. Bringing up the rear comes Rodriguez (M. Ward’s first band) with ‘Crucify Your Mind’. This edition’s spoken word outro comes from Will Self reading Part 4 of his story The Happy Detective in a selection of amusing American accents. Parts 1 to 3 sound worth tracking down on the strength of this two and a half minute segment (on the selections by Groove Armada, Snow Patrol & The Cinematic Orchestra respectively). However, otherwise this is a pretty lacklustre bunch of tunes which generally lose any individual potency through association with each other and you’ll be lucky to get all the way through should you actually put them on after or even during a late night. You won’t even have that annoying reminder that you’re listening to a promo popping up every so often to keep you awake.

Signed to Sub Pop on the strength of an unsolicited demo, Daniel Martin Moore is a singer, pianist, guitarist and songwriter who is already two albums into a rather curious catalogue. His first album, Dear Companion, was written with Ben Sollee last year and tackled environmentally destructive mining techniques in Kentucky. Now he follows it up with a solo record which turns out to be gospel, but not as we know it.

Moore, in a light, reflective baritone, sings a combination of covers and his own tunes. All are firmly in the gospel tradition which lay at the heart of his boyhood Kentucky Sundays. But In the Cool of the Day places these celebratory songs in a new light, doing without backing choruses and joyful instrumentation, instead playing them as though they were dark folk ballads. The result is a sound much more like Bon Iver than Mahalia Jackson. Moore’s voice is backed by ‘an ancient piano’, bluegrass banjo, mandolin, an occasional organ and a distinctive double bass which pops up throughout. But the tone is stripped back, reflective and highly ambiguous.

Daniel Martin Moore’s accompanying press release fills us in on his intention to create ‘a fresh take on “gospel” music’ and claims that God spoke to him through the bass notes of his piano and said “make this an album for your family.” Who knows what ‘an album for the family’ means, but In the Cool of the Day is certainly not filled with happy songs to sing with the children.  Much of this record comes across as sinister, threatening and downright weird, and it’s far from clear whether this is how Moore meant it.

For example, Moore’s lugubrious vocals on ‘Softly and Tenderly’ at the midpoint of the record whisper ‘Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me’, ‘Come home, come home’. The sotto voce male backing vocals seem to have been borrowed from ‘Blue Velvet’, and the song becomes increasing sinister as Moore asks ‘Why must we tarry when Jesus is waiting, waiting for you and for me.’ Not merely a song about death, it hints strongly that the singer is seriously considering dispatching himself along the highway to heaven. Moore, intentionally or otherwise, undermines the entire concept of Gospel music by focussing on the words, which dissolve under his scrutiny and reform, yielding up meanings that are far from reassuring.

‘Closer Walk With Thee’ has a tinkling, music-box sound and a great deal of insistence on the ‘walk’ but no information on the destination, which you feel probably ends with a long, long fall. The title song is positively hallucinatory, with just a piano, playing quiet as a mouse, and Moore crooning softly ‘Do you like my garden so green?’ He quotes from a conversation with ‘My Lord’, who tells him ‘This earth is a garden, the garden of my mind’, triggering a nagging and inappropriate association with ‘Inna-Gadda-Vida’ at least in the garden of this reviewer’s mind. If you’re not spooked by it, there’s a strong temptation to giggle at such po-faced music.  However, at their best these delicate songs have an eerie beauty which is not completely undermined by disconcerting death cult vibes.

The songs that Moore himself has written, of which there are six, are unfortunately not the strongest tracks on the album. The best is perhaps ‘O My Soul’ which delivers a passable imitation of the traditional songs covered elsewhere, and is also significantly more upbeat than most of the tracks. Its slightly increased tempo proves something of a relief in an album which is seriously lacking in light and shade, as slow, measured song follows slow, measured song. The second half, an instrumental boogie with a quivering organ lurking in the corner is probably the most fun on the whole record. By contract the final track, ‘Set Things Aright’, is not only burdened with a Mary Poppins chorus – “A long day needs a good night to set things aright” – but drags its melody reluctantly across a long three minutes.

At a few points on In the Cool of the Day it is possible to understand Sub Pop’s rationale for signing Moore. He is a confident singer with a fine voice, and there is a streak of disconcerting Southern strangeness in his music which could fit alongside stablemates like Coco Rosie. However, much of the album is frankly rather dull, and too lacking in entertainment value to please even those seeking traditional, wholesome, God-fearing fun for all the family.

The Tallest Man on Earth - Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird

It must be a drag for poor Kristian Matsson, being compared to Bob Dylan every time he opens his mouth, but it’s a comparison which holds more water than the typically lazy parallel drawn between Dylan and anyone who plays an acoustic guitar. The Tallest Man on Earth sports a vocal timbre which frankly sounds like the guy, and, with this brilliant new EP, Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird, he takes another step towards sharing Dylan’s virtuosic maturity and knack for worldly lyricism. We’re going through a period of popular music – ushered in by the Fleet Foxes, currently spearheaded by Mumford and Sons – where trendy nu-Folk is arguably reaching saturation point. Luckily, The Tallest Man on Earth avoids being swept out with the dirge by continuing to broaden, deepen and darken his already excellent craft.

This EP is a lot more solemn and downbeat in tone compared to the recent The Wild Hunt LP, released earlier this year. These five songs saunter forward on lightly skipping finger picked chords, never even thinking about launching into some of the full voiced, six string hammerings of that album. It’s a delightfully restrained affair; a textbook example of doing more with less. Even the crunch of the electric (gasp!) ‘Dreamer’ moves languidly, allowing his the cinematic sweep of his increasingly epic song writing to take centre stage. Every so often, you get the faintest suggestion of something buried in the mix – could’ve been a string section, could’ve been guitar feedback – but it’s snatched away in an instant. Distractions are minimal; it’s just you and him: his engaging vocal drawing you deeply into the songs.

His lyrical prowess isn’t confined to its poetic quality, handsome though it is. Further than that, it’s Matsson’s ability to bend his syllabic rhythms to the will of the songs’ melodies which is so striking. The tiny lyrical snippet of “a little river to the golden ground” from the opening song’s chorus, to take just one early example, skips lightly across its hook with grace – a hook born as much from its rhythm as its melody. He’s the master of knowing exactly which rhythms, phrasings and sounds compliment his breezy melodies most effectively; facilitating frequent shifts from the simplistic to the sublime. Similarly, his delivery is golden: the big push of “you’re the light over me” (a ham-fisted line on paper) is delivered on ‘Dreamer’ with a unique sense of drama lying somewhere between longing and resentment, affording the lyric a heightened sense of personality. It’s this effortlessly emotive quality, and his instinctual ability to find the best form of delivery, that make the Dylan comparisons perfectly well founded.

The Wild Hunt was a fantastic enough LP, full of jaunty numbers and upbeat hooks, but, perhaps purposefully, this clutch of tracks feels like a shift down in gear, a step back, and an attempt at sober self evaluation. The results are haunting, but there’s no diminishment of Matsson’s charismatic warmth; when he asks “oh my Lord, why am I not strong?” the question is mournful, not defeatist. As exciting as everything we have already heard from The Tallest Man On Earth has been, Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird promises deeper shades of affecting tenderness to come.

Laish - Laish

When most people hear the word folk two things come to mind: beards and Mumford and Sons. However, Laish are set to change that. True, Bristol’s off kilter acoustic quintet have toured with the UK’s best known modern folk group, and their vocalist, Daniel Green, is even host to facial shrubbery, but that’s where all similarities between Laish and bog-standard folk end.

It’s clear from the band’s sound that they’re aiming to do something different with the genre, twisting harmonies and song structures into something that’s completely their own. While using traditional folk instruments, Laish still manage to inject their own unique sound, from the gentle, sombre strings of ‘To Do’ to the summery melodies of ‘Song on a Transition’, it’s clear that some real thought has gone into writing the album.

At times it seems as though Green et al are a little far of the mark, with the second track, ‘We Speak The Mantra’ conjuring feelings of the ocean with its pulsing, tidal vocals, but unfortunately this leads to a sense of aural sea-sickness.

Laish obviously have something special, managing to breathe new life into what can be a stifling genre. However, while there are some standout moments on their debut album, they still have some growing to do. This record shows that the band can find a great signature sound, all they need to do now is develop it.

Bellowhead - Hedonism

Bellowhead’s trajectory has been upward since their debut album, Burlesque, made their name and prefigured the commercial success of acts such as Mumford and Sons and Laura Marling, all filed loosely under ‘folk’. However, the strength of the 11-piece Bellowhead has always been their admirably relaxed attitude to style labels, particularly the F-word which tied previous generations up in knots. They are unconstrained by any expectations about their repertoire, and their main imperative seems to be to play music they enjoy. And it shows. Their big band sound uses three fiddles, a bouzouki, cello, trumpet, trombone, sax, helicon (a sort of medieval tuba), drums, possibly a banjo, and the eponymous bellows, in the hands of co-founder John Spiers.

Bellowhead describe themselves as “a party band”. The downside to their energetic, multi-layered playing is that they sound much better live than on record. Their live performances are wildly popular, and this is where their full range and depth shines, complemented by the spectacle of Jon Boden, frontman and the other band founder, singing and fiddling in a very un-folk silver lamé suit. It’s not an easy formula to recreate in the studio and previous albums have felt a little muddy, somewhat less than the sum of their parts.

The band seems to have recognised the need to up their game in the studio. They hired Stone Roses producer, John Leckie, and Studio 2 at Abbey Road (which, as Boden points out, is not cheap). The difference is audible, with the tracks on Hedonism generally benefiting from more measured use of their instrumental arsenal, allowing individual players room to breathe.

Another potential criticism of Bellowhead is that while they’re the best people for a party, who wants to do nothing but party? Well, alright, maybe lots of people. But their previous albums have lacked variety, light and shade. Many of the best folk songs are the darkest, not a repertoire that often needs a brass section. So it’s a tribute to the quality of the playing on Hedonism that Bellowhead pulls off some classics of the dark side. The prime example is Jacques Brel’s most famous song, ‘Amsterdam’, a song of bitterness and regret like no other. Bellowhead’s deep rumbling helicon, sounding like a fog horn, suits the song perfectly, and the pizzicato fiddle is both melancholy and gently comical. It’s also a major test of Jon Boden’s voice, and he passes with flying colours, declaiming “Bring me more fish!  Set it down by my side!” with desperate conviction.

Apart from ‘Amsterdam’, Hedonism is based largely on the traditional English repertoire of songs and tunes, but Bellowhead mix and match confidently, restyling to make the music the band’s own. This is notable on ‘Broomfield Hill’, a ballad about lost virginity, part of a thread of songs on Hedonism that take a unconventional attitude towards sex. Boden’s harmonising on the chorus, “There’s thirteen months all in one year, as I’ve heard people say…”, is excellent and the Bellowhead version is up there with the best.

The album begins with the shanty ‘New York Girls’, which unwinds like a coiled spring, and goes like the clappers. This is fine party band territory: unpretentious, flawless playing and an irrepressible determination to have a good time. The next track, the standard ‘A Begging I Will Go’ is also on full power, reminiscent of 70’s folk band Scafell Pike, who didn’t worry too much about the nuances as long as they were playing fast and loud. ‘The Hand Weaver and the Factory Maid’ is played with a similar reliance on volume, and ‘Captain Wedderburn’ veers in the same direction. Not every song needs or repays this approach.

Fortunately, there’s variation here too.  The tunes on the album are probably the best tracks, showing that Bellowhead really can play their instruments. ‘Cross-Eye and Chinless’ has a harrumphing helicon, and an irresistible Percy Grainger country dance tune. ‘Parson’s Farewell’ also stands out, a hornpipe with a riotous fiddle and trumpet melody which feels distinctly like the theme music to a late-60s BBC period drama. Then it’s followed, in disconcerting contrast, by a ska version of ‘Little Sally Racket’, during which Boden rhymes “banana” and “pian-er” and does his best Suggs impression. Just because a song works at a gig doesn’t mean it belongs on record, and this one feels pretty silly.

It feels unfair to be unduly critical of Hedonism, an album that bursts with pleasure and entertainment. Bellowhead give great folk. You won’t listen to this record to glimpse future of the genre, or to hear sounds you’ve never heard before, but you will have a lot of fun.

The Whiskey Priest - Wave And Cloud

The Whiskey Priest is in fact Seth Austin, a singer songwriter with an impressive beard and a country outlook who makes his music in Austin, the San Francisco of Texas. As well as the beard, he has a fine moniker, culled from Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory (although the ‘e’ he adds to ‘whiskey’ brings in curious Irish overtones). His first album, begun in a church attic on a four-track, arrives weighed down by a high risk press release from record label, Rainboot.  It declares, “It’s probably fairly unusual that a record label can, with any real level of honesty at least, suggest that they’re about to release a truly ‘classic’ album – one that could actually affect its audience to the point where it deserves the tag ‘life-changing’ – but we have that record.” Support for your artists is laudable, but probably only Blood on the Tracks, Here Come the Warm Jets and Kimono My House could live up to a billing like that. Rainboot sets Wave and Cloud up to be sinus-clearingly, mind-warpingly good.  And although it’s not so bad, it falls some way short of the standards unhelpfully set by excitable marketing types.

First track, ‘Seafarer’s Lament’, has ambitious and life-changing written all over it.  Seth gives us 9 minutes 25 seconds of slow burn, his soulful voice building a long crescendo throughout the entire song.  It’s a remarkably confident way to open your first album, and The Whiskey Priest sound is readily identifiable from the first notes – gentle bass scraping in the distance, acoustic strumming in the foreground. The song takes the form of a storm at sea rumbling on the horizon, coming ever closer. The vocals tell an unhappy love story, which begins calmly: “I dreamed you were a ship of grey sailing the seas my loving way.” However, it’s difficult to pick out the lyrics in their entirety, and not just in this song, as they disappear beneath The Priest’s breathy delivery. This is not always such a loss as, although atmospheric from a distance, when examined too closely they have a tendency towards portentiousness. The second half of the track mostly involves a repeated chorus of “Oh the head ocean is prophesy, the ocean will not end suffering, the ocean will not let me be.” He means every word of it.

At this point, just one track in, The Whiskey Priest seems to have good tunes and expert instrumentation but is already overwhelmed by humourlessness and second-rate lyrics. Indeed, other tracks suffer from the same problems as ‘Seafarer’s Lament’. The title of the more upbeat ‘If a Train Was a Doctor Was a Song’ gives a pretty clear idea of what to expect, and unsurprisingly the lyrics don’t work at all. The first line, “If I was a train I would carry you along”, comes across as a pretty underwhelming offer, more than likely to get a reply along the lines of “But you’re not, I’m taking the car.” ‘Uncalled’ is better, intriguingly ambiguous with an understated melody and lyrics about Jesus and pulling back curtains, although The Priest rather spoils it by running out if ideas and resorting to ‘ah-umm’-ing halfway through.

‘Winter Window’ has a chilly woodwind melody, and a mood reminiscent of Vashti Bunyan’s ‘Winter is Blue’. The song is about being trapped in a relationship, and the guitar, flute and bells summon up just the right love-hate atmosphere. The vocals however, are anything but chilly. The Priest’s voice is cracked and racked, emoting with the tone dial firmly set to ‘heart-rending’. It’s a fine voice, but it doesn’t seem suited to the more delicate and oblique songs, which are potentially the best. Here, it messes up the mood, and quarrels with the backing band.

The album peaks with a set of three songs in the middle. ‘No Man is an Island (But Me)’ possesses a sense of humour, which releases the Priest to sing with abandon. This works much better than when he’s bottling it all up, and trying too hard to make us all feel his pain. And it’s also short, which means it’s genuinely funny and doesn’t overwork its slight but enjoyable concept. The next track, ‘Winter Secret Army Blood’, has an arresting percussion sound, with rim shots that sound as though they’re being drummed out on a school desk and a menacing, distorted melodeon that accompanies The Priest singing “I could kiss you like a curse.” It’s a convincingly heartfelt song, relaxed rather than contrived, and it boasts a good tune.  And ‘Wave and Cloud’ has a sampled vocal that loops and clicks throughout, repeating “I see her love” in harmony with crooned lyrics in the background sitting under a finger-picked, guitar figure, trebly and sad.

Elsewhere, the mood remains steadfastly unaltered and the lyrics underwhelm.  ‘The Way of the Future’ is a particular offender, spouting soft rock nonsense. ‘Real Good’ has an unpromising title, and repeats it at every opportunity, a readymade soundtrack for adverts we have yet to endure. ‘Careless’ is repetitive and under-developed. Closing track, ‘Love Me Like a Holy War’, has a ridiculous title and turns out to be about two girls from Texas, both of whom want a piece of The Priest. He’s definitely not taking advantage. In fact, the dilemma seems to be causing him a lot of grief and he wants “to know what the pain is for.”  Then after ‘hey-hey’-ing ‘la-la’-ing his way through a further 2 minutes 30 seconds of song, he’s gone, doubtless leaving behind a trail of changed lives behind him. This record is both pleasant and annoying, uninspired and touched with flashes of promise.  We’ll have to wait a little longer for the stone cold classic.

Jonah Maddox - Together We Are Taller

Oh deary dear. It seems Mumford & Sons have gone and upset a lot of people with their Mercury nomination. Though some saw the album as a whimsical folksy departure from the guitar-strewn indie that has dominated a large part of the awards of the last decade, some music purists (i.e. anyone with taste beyond pop laced with folk airs) saw Sigh No More as the equivalent of having a metal stake slowly worked into your temple – a situation not helped by the perpetual airtime ‘Little Lion Man’ still seems to get on 6Music. Unfortunately, it is this kind of divide that has split general opinion about the new era of folk.

Still, this new wave of typically charming, sometimes beautiful music continues to grow largely thanks to the likes of Ms Marling and her boyfriends (past and present). Amongst the array of new acoustic-y artists is 27-year-old Jonah Maddox who arrives onto the scene with his debut solo album since splitting with indie outfit Les Oeufs – yet another example that the musical landscape is shifting (for the Mercury Prize at least).

Together We Are Taller sees Maddox take a distinctly routine approach to making a folk album with lashings of harmonica, violin and banjo combined with delicate guitar melodies to give everything a rose tint of acoustic warmth. Pleasant and satisfying it may be, but tedium sets in when entire tracks consist only of his voice and that over-used sound of plinked-out notes. For example, in ‘Fold’, two thirds of the track can lull a listener into sleep with Jonah’s noticeably restrained vocals and repetitive guitar. It’s only after two and a half minutes that there is a glimpse of some definite talent as his vocals and chords are allowed to build to something forceful, even if it only lasts for about 30-odd seconds.

Going through the album it’s a theme that repeats itself over and over. More often than not, the slower, more stripped down tracks are reminiscent of songs written by the hundred of teenage boys who believe that acoustic guitar plus sappy lyrics equals emotional and musical depth. Luckily though, the album never quite completely descends into this as each of these tracks is partly redeemed by a burst of energy towards the end.

There are real tracks of beauty to be found in Together We Are Taller. The only true bit of folk comes in the form of ‘Happy Places’ where Maddox demonstrates his ability to enchant with voice and instrument in perfect harmony. Meanwhile, ‘Pandas Fighting’ is a track that slowly grows under your skin with its quietly building rhythm.  The track climaxes with the violin playing on heartstrings as Maddox sings “I don’t have far to fall, but I fall hard/And I believe its love every time”. It’s perhaps the most honest and relatable lyrics on the album and consequently makes the track the highlight of the album.

Maddox shows in Together We Are Taller that he’s without a doubt a good musician with glimmers of brilliance. The only problem to resolve is the lapses into teenage songwriting that weigh down the record. Though it will be no pop-folk behemoth, Jonah Maddox can be proud of a well constructed somewhat-folkish album that regains some of the credibility that has been lost in the genre after Sigh No More (#anyonebutmumford please).

Laura Marling

April 25, 2010

“Miss Laura’s coming and she’s going to knock your socks off” – that’s how Alessi of Alessi’s Ark introduces the headline act. And although the Royal Box at the Palladium is empty, in Laura Marling tonight we truly have a homecoming Queen. She even says herself how good it is to be back in her hometown after touring America and the UK.

She speaks because she can, and that is the title of the album; the song itself makes a blazing finale for her final gig. She whistles, she plays guitar, she tells a funny story about how her mother thought she wrote that Neil Young song, and didn’t know it was all about heroin. She sings, and her voice in song makes us forget the girlie banter and get swept up in the emotions, the stories and the characters she invents.

They sound like folk songs, ‘our’ music, songs familiar to us – but they are all Marling’s own. That’s the clever bit. She’s writing the songs that downtrodden women down the ages yearned to sing but dared not. From the schoolgirl’s sexy daydreams Alas I Cannot Swim to the battered wife’s escape I Speak Because I Can, Laura Marling voices experiences beyond her years.  Her voice itself seems to come from deep inside her self (unlike Alessi’s, which sounds like it’s from deep inside a plastic bucket – no matter).

Between The Unthanks’ authentic tradition, Joanna Newsom’s  daft screechiness and Goldfrapp’s fake folksiness (thankfully now discarded), Laura Marling strides along banging her own drum. This is what holds us spellbound – we old, young and middle-aged musos, folkies, mums and daughters are all cheering but not dancing in the aisles nor even singing along. The lyrics are dark, the beats are tricky; she’s a Londoner playing the Palladium, not a bard of the Celtic twilight. Just to make sure we remember that she is now in the big time, the band overwhelms Laura’s voice sometimes and the lighting is rockstar rather than evocative. Do we really need the bass player from Boy and Bear (the warm-up band) adding to an already overblown sound? Let the girl sing! She is a star.

Beyond The Curve

Beyond The Curve is coming up at London’s The Camden Head on April 4th, with a dashing bill of poetry, short film, theatre, live music, cabaret, spoken word and much more. You can monopolise on cheaper tickets by purchasing in advance, where we’re offering a special discount. Just visit Wegottickets’ Beyond The Curve page to purchase.

As a reminder, the bill has been put together by us and our good friends at Broken Glass and will preview the summer’s fringe festivals with a hand-picked programme starting at 3pm and taking its audience through until the early hours.

And what’s more: the day after is Bank Holiday Monday!

Tickets, once again are available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/74842

March 15, 2010

A man and his guitar. A bearded man and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man with a penchant for Bob Dylan and his guitar. A Swedish bearded man with a penchant for Bob Dylan and his guitar that I’m now head over heels in love with. The difference between all of its proceeding observations and the last one is its unlikeliness, in a world obliterated by folk musicians and their relative diluted incarnations.

Before The Tallest Man On Earth’s hero worship garnering headline slot comes Alessi’s Ark, a still-19 folk singer perfectly formed. There’s a token floral dress and quaintly doe-eyed whimsy, but with that an eloquence and personality which makes it no surprise she was snapped up by Bella Union for her next release. Her demeanour on paper seems too perfect – it features short snatches including “this venue’s beautiful”, “enjoy The Tallest Man EVER”, “I’ll just stop talking” and about 11 uses of the word “lovely” -  but it works, because she’s the real deal. Not ‘folky’, or ‘from the London new-folk movement’, she’s real and sparky. And effervescent-smart.

It’ll be no surprise if Alessi Laurent-Marke takes on Laura Marling levels of adoration come Autumn 2010, for her melodies flow with such charm, focus and conviction. ‘The Horse’ sounds so delicate and untouched live, much like on her recordings but with a perfection that’s far more honest. The recurring and really rather visual imagery is stunning, for example the hummingbird fluxing his wings and stealing Alessi away on ‘Hummingbird’, sung with such intent.

Now onto The Tallest Man On Earth, the alias of Kristian Matsson. The sound on his records is of one of raw grit but live, he’s brazen. He’s a threatening presence, pacing the stage and getting up close to those at the very front of the Edwardian Bush Hall. His love for the American south is frantic, and his stare-of-death demeanour makes for astounding set.

This is all visual; to watch this show is to be transported straight back into the ’60s where not just one song stands out but instead, a reverent audience are both silently and graciously watching an entire set of remarkable presence and wit. ‘Shallow Grave’ reaches singalong status, performed in front of an imaginary moonlight. Matsson stalks the crowd and it’s impossible to take a glance away from him, not knowing where he’ll be just five seconds later. He may not be the tallest man on earth but his stature certainly makes him one of the most powerful.

The wistful chords on ‘Where Do My Bluebirds Fly’ are strung out beautifully, and his audience-hunting never waivers, shushing the crowd and playfully shouting down any attempts at a heckle. The tracks premiered from his new album The Wild Hunt build on his remarkable consistency, ‘Troubles Will Be Gone’ providing minimal power with fascinating, on-its-toes chord sequences.

Alessi’s Ark and The Tallest Man On Earth both stand miles ahead tonight as not only exquisite musicians but stunning performers and charming individuals. And there’s no more perfect venue than Bush Hall to turn a fondness for them into full-blown love, admiration and awe.

Photos by Paul Bridgewater:

Alessi's Ark

The Tallest Man On Earth

The Tallest Man On Earth

The Tallest Man On Earth

The Tallest Man On Earth