Those that saw GoGo Penguin’s live performance of their score to the film ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (‘Life out of balance’) a few years ago would have known what to expect from this ridiculously talented trio at the Aviva Studios last night. And plenty of them were numbered, I’m sure, amongst the crowd, the most erudite-looking I’ve ever seen for a gig, including representatives probably both from contemporary music schools and from the Fast Show’s ‘Jazz Club’ back in the 1990s.

This time out the musical performance was a carefully crafted blend of their musical catalogue and an at times mesmerising and almost non-stop 75-minute audio visual experience conjured up by the ‘cognitive design studio’ TENENTNET and labeled ‘Aphonenia’. It was the World Premiere tonight.

For the benefit of the uninitiated (and, hands up, I was one) ‘Apophenia’ is “the unmotivated tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.”

It manifests itself in numerous ways. Statistically, it is the false identification of patterns in data. I’ll leave that one to the stattos. More meaningfully, it can describe a human propensity unreasonably to seek definite patterns in random information, such as can occur in gambling. Now we’re talking. Not so much a life out of balance as one out of control.

The way it is presented in the film, on a giant cinema screen that dwarfed the barely lit musicians below it, is a mind-blowing maelstrom of shifting, weaving, throbbing images which, if you aren’t careful, can remove you from the safety of the somewhat chic St John’s district of Manchester into the madhouse.

Those relentless images include the sensation of being in a planetarium and then instantly within a body (are the stars and atoms interchangeable like the galaxy in a globe on the cat’s collar in Men in Black?)

The images move so fast at times it’s hard to keep up. Sensual overload. Was that Trump at Hole 5 on his golf course? The Grand Canyon morphs into an Icelandic landscape complete with deadly volcanic eruptions.

Huge waves swirl around as if a tsunami has hit; the waving hair of a dog is transformed into enormous fields of wheat; historical and futuristic images are intertwined in a ‘2001’ – like sequence. The Big Brother eye forms out of a mountainside, and stares unnervingly at you. Birds swirl in their vast evening formations like they do on the video of Choir of Young Believers’ ‘Hollow Talk’.

Then giant geese sweep majestically across that mountain scene before disappearing in a cloud of feathers and Zebra-like two-headed leopards prowl the savannah.

These dramatic moments are matched by quieter, more contemplative ones and in one sequence I was reminded of the Thanatorium the (enforced) assisted suicide programme in the film Soylent Green, a topic that is about to raise its ugly head here in the UK.

And then in the final sections we are returned to our own habitat of skyscraper cities, modernistic architecture fusing into itself, contrasted with iconic art deco works like London’s Trellis Tower, and ultimately to Manchester, the band’s home city where its ceaseless rush towards ground breaking, towering modernity is contrasted with a lingering and then repeated shot of the Northern Quarter’s Vinyl Exchange; probably the most impactful and meaningful one of the entire film.

Musically, GoGo Penguin intrigues me. Technically, they cannot be faulted. Just once I thought drummer Jon Scott (a new addition since I last saw them) had missed a single snare drum beat but on reflection it was probably just my imagination; my mind zapped by the events on the screen. With much emphasis on the ride cymbal and his three snare drums his sometimes complex work is always crisp and neat.

Double Bassist (for the most part) Ian Blacka mainly plays a rhythmical role but occasionally shoots off into almost a lead guitar one, his instrument producing the sort of sound you were least expecting.

Keyboard man Chris Illingworth has the attribute that he is so proficient at his art that you sometimes barely notice he is even there. His performance is an effortless mastery of his piano.

There is some intrusion from electronic backing tapes but it is low key. The question it prompts is how they are able to keep it all together – live and recorded music and a complex film show, with absolute precision.

Many of their pieces follow a similar format, a slow build up into a watered down climax by way of an obscure metre and only once I can remember them rocking out and then only for a short period.

I do wish they would occasionally slip into common time, get a recognisable beat going and let rip. And I suspect many others in the audience feel the same. Constant innovation is fascinating to watch but everyone needs to bang their head every so often.

But at the end of the day they will continue to do what they do best. They have cinematic tendencies and they show through whatever they do.

The word multimedia is thrown around with loose abandon these days. Rig a flickering black and white TV set up on stage to go with your show and you are ‘multimedia’. While it remains a fairly simple concept of mainly acoustic instrumentation and a video show this performance in my opinion epitomises what multimedia means today and it was enhanced further by its location in the Aviva Studios, an ultra modernistic building but with the darkness and clean straight lines in its performance spaces that are emblematic of its host city’s smoky industrial past.

‘Everything is going to be OK’ – title track from GoGo Penguin’s most recent album.

The ‘Apophenia’ tour now continues with seven performances across Europe until the end of November, including one in London. See the website for details.

Find them on:

Website: https://gogopenguin.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Gogopenguin

X/Twitter: https://x.com/GoGo_Penguin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gogo_penguin/

The post Midweek Intermission – GoGo Penguin live at The Hall, Aviva Studios, Manchester, 18th September – Apophenia: World Premiere appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

She was here for the first of a three night residency at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, the home to Factory International and of which it’s acoustically perfect ‘Hall’ has the biggest stage I’ve ever seen – high enough for Peter Pan to have flown around as an extra in her expansive, ambitious live show and making Glastonbury’s two puny main stage efforts look like a lean-to and a bus shelter.

I don’t pretend to know too much about her and I opted to go along with little in the way of prepping. A Janelle virgin, if you will.

Let’s get the negative out of the way first; there’s only one. Namely that she is a conceptual artist and the main show was presented in four parts, each as a ‘chapter’, which I assume relate directly or indirectly to individual albums or how she has lived her life, or a combination thereof, or something else entirely.

I got the impression that the final ‘chapter’ was environmentally oriented but there was so much going on it was hard to keep up.

And that’s the problem. The fans might well ‘get’ all of it but it goes straight over the head of everyone else.

The band often makes the difference with any solo performer and hers were all top class artists, session people I guess, in their own right and almost exclusively female (what’s that about female musicians not getting enough exposure?); a guitarist, bassist, drummer, trumpeter and trombonist (is that the correct word, I can’t say tromboner can I?), along with a couple of dancers. Interestingly, no keys, although that had no adverse effect on the wall of sound they created.

I got the feeling that at least some of them are from a jazz background, especially the classy drummer. Janelle’s style is hard to pigeonhole and she’s famously shape -shifted from album to album. It embraces R&B, hip-hop, pop (the song ‘Pynk’ is a perfect example), soul and a tiny bit of rap but I couldn’t detach myself from an underlying jazz vibe that permeated much of the set and the entirety of the first half hour.

She’s the sum of many parts but she does have a jazz background after all and it amused me that some of her fans, or androids as she might still call them (better than Gaga’s ‘Little Monsters’), rapturously applauded that section while they probably wouldn’t be seen dead slumming it with a pint of bitter and a pizza and listening to similarly jazzy vibes in Matt & Phred’s.

The traditional tuxedo wardrobe was not so much in evidence, just for the most part (perhaps that should be the least part), a figure hugging black leotard outfit that ended sharply at the crotch.

She cuts a fine figure; more like 28 than 38. She may be only five feet tall but has a terrific trimmed body, an impressive booty and boy does she know how to shake it, oh so subtly.

Pardon me while I insert a Wiki quote here because it says it all. It is related to rapper Sean Combs (Diddy), much in the news for all the wrong reasons of late but who effectively ‘found’ Janelle Monáe:

“He loved her look, loved that you couldn’t see her body, loved the way she was dancing, and just loved the vibe. He felt like she had something that was different – something new and fresh.”

Well you could certainly see her body tonight (and speaking of female exposure we even got a quick flash of a left breast at one point, to the biggest cheer of the night but I have no idea why she did that).

The remainder of the Combs quote is perfectly on point. I’d anticipated something like a hybrid of Gaga, Madonna and Beyoncé, perhaps even Cardi B, but what Janelle offers is unique.

She flounced onstage, with a wonderfully clear full screen backdrop of her courtesy of multiple cameras that remained throughout the set, poking out of every orifice and peering into some as well, looking like she’d just been delivered by Interflora directly into the Rio de Janeiro carnival. The girl from Ipanema, via Kansas City.

The pace of the opening half hour was relentless. I was out of breath just watching it. I assume they must bike it between gigs, they’re so fit. She/they (not a pronoun malfunction) flounced through hit after hit – ‘Float’, ‘Champagne Shit’, ‘Phenomenal’, ‘Haute’, ‘Django Queen’ like a hurricane and there was barely a spare second in which notes and chords weren’t being played.

Her style is very cinematic too, a combination of vocal effects, the all-embracing musical sound and the visual imagery.

Then there are little phrases that will pop up on screen as she sings them like “Dance ’cause there ain’t nobody else in this bitch like you” that drive the audience wild.

As the show progressed it started to calm down a little. It had to. Imagine Georgia defending like mad against ticky-tacky Spain for 90 minutes, chasing shadows and trying to catch them out with lung bursting counter attacks. They’d be exhausted and so would Janelle have been here.  

From Chapter III (T[high] Vibrations) onwards, it entered into a more restrained, almost lovey-dovey period, in which the balladic ‘Lipstick Lover’ was delivered very sexily.

During ‘Paid in Pleasure’ she invited random audience members up on stage to natter and dance to the point where it was overflowing; an example of ‘empowering’ people, of ‘being yourself’ a declaration of which had already appeared right at the start of the set on screen in Chapter I – ‘A thousand versions of the self’. It is clearly a subject close to her heart.

Unfortunately, the vagaries of the local transport system meant I couldn’t stay around for what turned out to be two lengthy encores but I had seen enough to know that this is a special artist.

She acts her stories and observations as much as she sings them but not in a way that is as evident as with so many singer/dancer/actress/models – it’s more understated than that and she does possess real quality in her ability to do it, she isn’t merely going through the motions.

Allied to that is the fact she is a little bundle of kinetic energy who simply doesn’t stop moving, as if she’s running off Duracell batteries.

I was left with two lingering puzzles. Firstly, why her set seems to run in reverse. Even if it is laid out by ‘chapter’ it would make more sense if it started off fairly slowly and then built up to the climax which in actuality comes first. That would be off the register.

Secondly, why did Dua Lipa and SZA headline Glastonbury when this lady was pawned off with a teatime post-Shania afternoon spot and virtually zero media attention?

Her tour continues with two more nights at Manchester (3^rd and 4^th July), then on into Europe and concluding with two dates in the US in September as things stand now. (See website for details).

Find her on:

Website: https://www.jmonae.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janellemonae

X/Twitter: https://x.com/JanelleMonae

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janellemonae/

The post Midweek Intermission – Janelle Monáe live at Aviva Studios Manchester, 2nd July appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

I mention it in passing because if you just happened to be at a loose end in Stockport on a rainy (what’s new?) Bank Holiday Monday or you’d just got off the train from London at the station around the corner and fancied a quick pint you’d have been forgiven for thinking you were in the Cavern, circa 1965, if you breezed in during Mansfield’s set.

They are mainly from Copenhagen not Nottinghamshire but singer and guitarist Christian Stage spent some time in the northwest and possibly Mansfield too, which is perhaps how they got the name (I’ve never asked).

I’ve reviewed their singles on several occasions and always marveled at how they are able to combine a deep understanding of the Merseybeat and 1990s Brit Pop Manchester (not ‘Madchester’ which came earlier) era to the extent that they ‘do’ them better than any contemporary bands that I know of, and while making sure their own individual flavouring doesn’t go unnoticed either.

Seeing them live for the first time, in a small venue and watched by a crowd that instantly took to them, it was that 60s Mersey sound which predominated.

They were a man light tonight, the lead guitarist, Mathias Havelund, who also contributes vocals, having had to return home at short notice, but that made little difference, the vocalist, guitarist and chief songwriter Christian Stage making light work of the burden of combining lead and rhythm guitar roles.

Backing him is a rhythm section second to none, namely Mathias Wedeken (bass) and Filip Gulløv (drums). The former works his fingers up and down the fret board faster than a casino card dealer, his contribution most notable in ‘Come along’ and in the closer ‘Dreams of Desire’ in which his guitar could have been a pneumatic drill.

The latter, meanwhile, resplendent in a very 60s white shirt and tie, was the epitome of unhurried Ringo cool and precision. Indeed his playing style is so Starr-oriented that if you closed your eyes you could easily believe it’s him.

Peace and love, man.

And boy, are they tight.

The set included songs from both of their albums, 2020’s ‘Star-crossed lovers’ and the most recent one, ‘For all the right reasons’, which has been released only in the last 10 days or so.

Highlight of the set for me was the classic 60s ‘Chasing after you’ which practically reinvented that era on the night but as we’ve previously covered it as a single I’ve selected as the sample track, which was played on the evening, ‘The sky’s in love with you.’

I’ve been a bit disappointed with a few gigs I’ve seen this year, featuring some big names, but Mansfield were born not to disappoint. Theirs is such a relaxed, professional delivery that no matter what your problems are, for an hour or so you are transported back to better times decades ago and they simply cease to exist.

With no disrespect to the venue, which I took a shine to, Mansfield need bigger ones and greater exposure. Hopefully they’ll be back before long and playing them.

Find them on:

Website: http://www.mansfield.dk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mansfieldband

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mansfieldcph/

The venue: https://www.facebook.com/thespinningtop/

The post Mansfield (Denmark) – live at The Spinning Top, Stockport, on 27th May appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

I’m bringing this section forward this week as it is Easter and there will be quite a few Nordic releases to cover. It’s a trip down Memory Lane tonight. I can’t remember the last time I pitched up at a small dark venue to listen to bands of rockers playing their socks off at 11 on the volume knob. The things we do for love.

That venue is Retro Bar, on the edge of Manchester’s student quarter – well student city now I suppose -and the Gay Village, where the event room is situated in a basement so deep it will serve as a great bomb shelter when the time comes. Don’t tell too many people about it though, it only holds about 100.

I vaguely recall it was the location of a popular Greek dance bar in the 1980s, when Manchester’s nightlife was at its peak, but those days are long gone.

Today, music venues, pubs and bars are closing faster than they are opening and that’s at least partly down to the fact you can’t find a place to park if you are coming in from the ‘burbs. All my usual spaces are now unavailable owing either to yet another block of apartments being built or some or other arcane decision made by the Manchester Burgermeisters. So I ended up closer to the Etihad Stadium than to the venue.

But a refreshing 30-minute hike later I was ready for anything, including being met on the door by the female singer of one of the support bands who seemed to be standing in as the doorman.

That band is Apparition, mainly out of Manchester. I’m not sure how to classify them. There are so many genres and sub-genres these days I don’t know where to start. I suppose somewhere between a traditional heavy rock band and a noise band will have to do, with the emphasis on the latter bit.

They generate plenty of energy, the vocalist (didn’t catch her name) knows how to grab and retain attention, they play very competently and at speed and they know how to get the crowd going. Early on they had the audience doing a little dance they’ve patented which looked like Wilson, Keppel and Betty’s ‘Sand Dance’. Absolutely no-one will know what I’m talking about there, so just Google it!

By the time we reached their “heaviest song”, ‘Possession’ heads were flailing so consistently they could have kept the National Grid going on their own. If this is ‘green energy’ I’ll buy it.   

The band I was scheduled to see is Madrid-based Deriva which is in the midst of a short tour of northern Europe, with four UK dates of which this was the second. They messaged me and asked me to go along and I was more than happy to make the trip because their journey was much longer than mine and I will support any European artist or band that makes the effort to come here, what with all the EU administration crap they have to go through to do it. I wish more Nordic bands would do the same.

I just hope they were able to find somewhere to park.

Deriva’s members also come from the northern Spanish province of Galicia and in the drummer’s case he is Scottish but now based in Colorado, USA. If he flew in just for these dates he deserves a medal.

They bill themselves as “an instrumental cinematic post-metal machine”, creating “movies for your ears” and one that “encompass raw emotion ranging from melancholy and contemplation to rage and explosivity.”

They certainly are not deriva-tive of any other band if you’ll pardon the pun. From what I saw and heard they are pretty well unique.

They are wholly instrumental, which I thought, after the event, is a shame because some of their songs do merit a vocal contribution in the more “explosive” passages, even if there are no actual lyrics. On the video below you can see that they have employed a dancer/performing artist and that is equally complementary. I’d love to see them with both a vocalist and dancer, on a bigger stage. Now that really would be something.

I have even more difficulty pigeonholing Deriva than I had with Apparition. As regular readers will know I follow symphonic metal, especially Nightwish, and I was hoping for a taste of that. They aren’t symphonic in that they do not follow the sort of chord progressions that are suited to orchestral overlays and actual metal riffs are few and far between but that doesn’t mean they aren’t melodic. Or that they don’t rock. And a variety of complex time signatures will keep you on your toes.

Where they score particularly highly is in allying the wall of sound they create with the sort of stage presence that tells you they think deeply about the music they construct and take a genuine delight in playing it, even to a small number of people, mainly young Spaniards studying or otherwise living here I guess.

They were so taken with it all that I started to think of them as the Deriva Ultras.

They also occasionally insert other modes into their songs. Towards the end I was surprised to hear a bit of psych and then even more so to encounter some early years’ prog, a section of a song that sounded like it might have belonged to an early Genesis album.

Anyway, see what you make of it. Here is the video I mentioned earlier, of ‘Aquae Vitae’; a popular drink in Madrid I assume.

(‘Aqua Vitae’ is the new single from the album ‘NONA/DÉCIMA/MORTA’.)

No disrespect at all intended to Retro Bar but Deriva both needs and deserves a bigger venue, supported by more intense promotion. Some of the innovative stuff they played wouldn’t be out of place at the Royal Northern College of Music or Stoller Hall. I’m confident they will find an audience here.

I hope they might play a festival in Manchester, perhaps the Beyond the Music event, the second edition of which (in October) just opened for bookings. (Hint to band!)

The only slight concern I have is the volume they play at. It was probably well in excess of 100Db, too loud for my delicate lugholes without the earplugs that distort the sound badly, and if the Burgermeisters had found out they might have been shut down in another venue. They wouldn’t even be allowed into Night & Day, what with the complaining neighbours they have.

I wonder too if it is really necessary to play intelligent music at that volume.

Only the Spanish can party like the Spanish and when I left it was fiesta time with what I guess was the hit of the week on the national radio blaring through the speakers and band and audience alike in full on ‘carnaval’ mode. Time for my siesta. Adios amigos.

Find them on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearederiva

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearederiva/

Bandcamp (album): https://wearederiva.bandcamp.com/album/nona-d-cima-morta

The post Weekend Intermission – Live! Deriva (Spain) at Retro Bar Manchester appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

MF Tomlinson

It isn’t often you get to meet the artist at all these days, and even less so even before the gig starts.

There was a technical issue with my ticket but just like that MF Tomlinson appeared like Superman out of nowhere to sort it out. He’d just driven up from London, a six-hour journey, and was still carrying his gear. I’m surprised he made it that quickly given the state of Britain’s motorways and their 50mph limits for road works that don’t seem to exist.

I don’t know how you can make a knackering journey like that and then appear onstage 15 minutes later as if you’ve just come out of a Thai massage.

MF, a product of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the laid back lifestyle I imagine goes with it, is a charming type and he easily transfers that charm on stage. His singing voice is quite different to his conversational one and can vary between high tenor and bass; it’s very effective and sets him aside immediately from many other male singer-songwriters.

He is, like Torres, the artist he was supporting (and a wise choice on her part I would say, having seen some hopelessly lopsided support artists recently), something of a natural story teller; in his case a chronicler of the humdrum and the absurd and how they often exist in tandem.

He holds an audience easily, with the élan of a seasoned stand-up comedian and knows when and how to deliver the humorous aside without it dying on him. “My father told me that you can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish.”

And he mixes styles wonderfully. There is never a dull moment as he acts out his various roles with exaggerated facial expressions and physical movements without ever pushing that particular envelope too far and making a parody of himself.

His songs, some of them Stars & Stripes-washed with an Aussie version of Americana, suit the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar but he uses an electric one instead, which confirms a more down to earth approach to his songwriting while his deft use of numerous pedals channeled through that guitar permit him to replicate the string sections on his recorded songs.

The range of songs in his short set was impressive, varying between the disarming nature of the desolate, guitar-plucking, brass and woodwind backed (on the album) ballad ‘Winter time blues’ with its unexpected hard rock guitar extended bridge,to the “end of the world song” as he put it, ‘End of the road’, one that could have ensured that Ralph McTell wasn’t a one hit wonder, to an abridged version of the powerful album title track, ‘We are still wild horses’, which runs to 21 minutes in the recorded version; a mini symphony.

I’ll make a couple of predictions about Mr Tomlinson.

• He’ll be back here soon, and he won’t be supporting anyone else
• Add a band and he will be dynamite live.

There’s big future ahead of him. And I don’t mean surfing.

Torres

It’s five years at least since I last saw Torres, at the Soup Kitchen. (If you don’t know Manchester she was playing there, not waiting in line for a charity meal). After that experience she must have thought she was performing in a pristine pink heaven, here tonight.

On that previous occasion she was pushing her third album, ‘Three Futures’ and I’ll never forget the rendition of ‘Concrete Ganesha’ which brought the show to a conclusion. It is one of the finest performances, if not the finest, I’ve ever seen in a small venue. And it’s still her best song.

This time she is promoting her sixth album ‘What an enormous room’, released only a week or so ago. I can’t remember her being particularly chatty at SK, or just plain ‘Soup’ as it is now known. She might simply have been worrying if she could get out before it fell down on her head or burst into flames.

Back with a different band, mainly female as is increasingly the way it is, this time Mackenzie Scott was super chatty. The reason for it is clear and she was more than happy to share it with us. That reason is lurve.

Since her last visit she’s identified, chased, nailed and married the lady who became her wife and she wants the world to know about it. And the world, at least that part of it in the venue tonight, was super happy for her. It was quite a touching moment actually. That relationship seems to have shaped many of her songs on the new album.

She shared with us that ‘What an enormous room’ is about the mind and how to use it, and one of her new songs was more psychy in nature than I’d usually associate with her; it could have been the Polyphonic Spree up there at once stage.

Her chattiness was as much a part of the show as the music. She is an inveterate story teller when she gets going, even more so than MF Tomlinson, and some stories were longer than the songs she was introducing.

She regaled us with one about being brought up by her adoptive parents as a Baptist, and how she couldn’t have become a nun as once intended because she realised there were no lesbian nuns. (Perhaps things are different now). Another explained the song ‘Three Futures’ and the choices she faced in her personal life while new song ‘I got the fear’ concerns ridding herself of depression so that anxiety could take hold instead.

She tells these stories in a refreshingly disarming way. I wish more artists would follow her lead and a writing collaboration with MF Tomlinson might benefit both of them.

I had to leave early and caught a little more than half the 15-song set but I did manage to hear ‘Don’t go puttin’ wishes in my head’, one of her more poppy songs with strong melodies and one that the audience had been anticipating too, judging from their reaction.

Mackenzie and her band performed it, and everything else I heard, with the panache we’ve come to expect of her and with all of her attendant restrained theatricality but on the night I thought they’d got the sound mix wrong.

Perhaps Yes has a new sound system since I was last there but her vocal in particular was too loud and when she reached the high and explosive notes it was like a dentist’s high speed drill wielded by Swans or My Bloody Valentine. In the case of ‘Don’t go puttin’…those lovely melodies were sucked into a vortex of noise.  

None of this of course detracts from her justifiable status as a top indie rock performer and I was a little surprised at the meagerness of the crowd. It isn’t as if she is an infrequent visitor to Manc-hattan. It was a freezing cold Monday night, one for staying in around the telly, but the remedy was here, awash with pink.

The post Weekend Intermission – Live – MF Tomlinson (supporting Torres) at the Pink Room, Yes, Manchester, 12th February appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

When you are touring consistently – and Weyes Blood is the Queen of the Tour Bus – there is always a chance your voice is going to give out eventually.

She left it until late in the set to tell us that she’d woken up that morning with no voice, but had decided valiantly that the show must go on in case it found its way back. I think most of the audience had guessed by then that something was amiss. Indeed it had returned, but only 75% or so and the power that typically accompanies that syrupy, honey-like alto vocal of hers was still AWOL.

But even at half-cocked vocally, Weyes Blood still puts on a fabulous live show, backed by a band that has been traipsing around the world with her all year and can probably play each note by rote now.

Unfortunately there were some other problems on the night. She relies quite heavily on visual images on several songs, notably on ‘God turn me into a flower’ and ‘Movies’. When I saw her in Manchester back in February the screen was about the size of postage stamp and here in Leeds the projection was on to a curtain. Watching and interpreting the deeply meaningful images was like trying to read a car number plate in front of you on an unlit section of the M62 on a typically dirty night in low cloud and rain.

A screen of her own might be a useful investment. You can’t have a movie without one.

And even her trusty little throbbing red heart, which usually features in several of her songs, only put in one appearance. I guess it was broken.

Let’s talk about the music. This lady fascinates me. You wouldn’t think she’d been in the business for 20 years. It’s only since her second last album, ‘Front Row Seat to Earth’ (2016) that she’s been on the radar under her new persona, having previously experimented with all sorts of weird, dark, electronic stuff that was going nowhere commercially and when she sounded completely different vocally to what she does today.

One of the marks of a true artist is that they can make songs work for you in a live show even when you don’t rate the album versions as highly as some of the others.

I expected the perfection provided on the night of the gorgeous ‘God turn me into a flower’, one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, and the power and precision of ‘Movies’, which have become yardsticks for her.

But I was taken aback by the restrained seductiveness of ‘Seven Words’, the heartbreak of ‘Diary’, and the emotional overload of ‘Hearts Aglow’, which for me was the highlight of the evening.

At the same time live shows can suggest how a song might be improved. The instrumental outro to ‘Children of the Empire’ for example is too short and fades out to nothing just as the audience is starting to move its collective feet. It could be a blockbuster.

While she usually works within a fairly limited vocal range of a couple of octaves with no diva-like extravagances, not only is it music to the ears, she can channel other artists remarkably well too. On ‘Diary’ you can barely spot the difference between her and Karen Carpenter, an analogy I’m sure any female artist would love to be made, while on ‘Twin Flame’ she takes on the Kate Bush character to perfection, both vocally and in her graceful movements.

‘God turn me into a flower’ recently released official video

A large part of her audience every night is female and it isn’t hard to see why. Quite apart from the fact that she carries her femininity well, many of her songs, while sometimes harbouring a dark underbelly, offer the promise of hope, and perhaps it is the case that women respond better to that state of being than do men.

It smacks of confidence in any artist when they can finish a show with a solo acoustic performance, just her and a guitar, as she did with ‘Picture me better’. Especially when your voice might go again at any moment. Privately, I was hoping for ‘Generation Y’, which they have been alternating during this tour but I’m not complaining.

If I’ve been critical at all here it is simply because Natalie Mering has won me over completely in the last three years or so since I discovered her, and especially so since ‘And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow’ was released last November. How it didn’t get a Grammy nomination baffles me. (You’ll find the usual suspects in there, I won’t name them, you know who are they are).

And expecting perfection every time and all the time is an unrealisable ambition.

But I’m certain that her career is only just starting and that the next album, the third in the trilogy that started with ‘Titanic Rising’ in 2019 will be the breakthrough one which finally gets her the global recognition she deserves.

Find her on:

Website: https://www.weyesblood.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weyesblood

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weyesblood/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeyesBlood   

The post Weekend Intermission – Live review – Weyes Blood, O2 Academy, Leeds, 12th November 2023 appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

So kudos to Girl Scout, who are in the midst of a 26-show tour across northern Europe, which includes 14 in the length and breadth of the UK. And here they are, supporting a UK band, Coach Party. That’s the way to do it, folks.

Another reason was to see what state the Gorilla venue is in after being closed for months while Network Rail repairs the embankment it lives under so that a train doesn’t crash through the ceiling during a show. That work must still be going on because the gig was moved to Canvas, a venue in the newish development, Circle Square, where the BBC used to be.

And it’s a nice, airy place, perhaps lacking the fetid ‘atmosphere’ that exists in the Gorilla dungeon but with an excellent air conditioning system, something which Gorilla could never boast. If I had a quid for every person I’ve seen carried out of there I’d be a millionaire.

I wasn’t too familiar with Girl Scout, which is a fairly new band even if they’ve had a lot of exposure, formed out of the pandemic and a dearth of activity in singer/guitarist Emma Jansson’s usual world of jazz.

She, guitarist Viktor Spasov (he sounds like a Russian chess player, don’t you think, or perhaps a James Bond film spy, although he has the look of Noel Gallagher?) and bassist Evelina Arvidsson Eklind are graduates of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, which is currently home to recent NMC interviewee Johanna Brun as regular readers will know. The place is getting a lot of publicity here for sure.

The formal ‘academic’ route is increasingly a way of getting into rock music especially, it seems, for those with a jazz academic background. Immediately, Highasakite and Pom Poko spring to mind – especially the latter – both having the spontaneity and interaction with their crowds which suits their music.

And that live show panache applies equally to Girl Scout, in the form of Emma and Viktor, while Evelina, one of the two quieter, less dramatic members along with Per Lindberg on drums, provide a solid rhythm section over which the dynamic duo strut their stuff.

Emma and Evelina harmonise extremely well, while Emma’s vocal is particularly effective in the higher ranges, her jazz training and experience ticking all the boxes where timing, rhythm and phrasing are concerned.

Their songs tell tales of childhood, families and romances. ‘Mothers and Fathers’ for example is about getting divorced and Emma made her feelings on the subject as plain as can be with the repeated mantra even before it got going, “be happy, don’t fight, choose divorce”. You get the impression that, one way or another, she’s been there.

And they do it in two main styles, namely, loosely indie rock and power ballads and which occasionally overlap. Within the eight song set I found a couple of the early ones to be a little formulaic, slow burning shoe gazers that never really ignited on stage, but as it progressed the momentum built up rapidly as it got rockier and even punkier by the minute.

During ‘Weirdo’ came the first of several explosive guitar shreds from Viktor, another one supporting Emma’s disappearance into the mosh pit in ‘I just needed you to know’. I have a hunch that harder rock will be their future.

Now having said that there wasn’t much of a mosh pit early on but by the end of the set there most definitely was, partly on account of the blistering pace of ‘I just needed you to know’ and show closer ‘Do you remember Sally Moore?’ and partly because Emma ordered, rather than invited, the two main dancers into the middle of the floor to encourage others to join in, which they promptly did.

Not a woman to be messed with. And since I’ve already mentioned Noel Gallagher it wouldn’t be inopportune to say she has a similar attitude that of ‘our kid’, brother Liam, if you know what I mean.

There is a legion of band comparisons to be found online, but Girl Scout distinctly remind me of Sløtface in their heyday and ‘Sally Moore’ could be ‘Nancy Drew.’ There are very few young frontwomen with the confidence and charisma to match Haley Shea, or Das Body’s Ellie Linden. Emma Jansson is one of them.

They released their second EP during the tour; it is called ‘Granny Music’. Who knows, ‘Grammy Music’ might turn out to be more apt.

I hope to see them back in Manchester soon and headlining venues like this, which they fully justify.

There are few videos yet of them performing live. This is ‘Bruises’, which is a track on ‘Granny Music’ but which did not feature in the show and one of the power ballads I mentioned earlier.

Find them on:

Website (including tour details): https://www.girlscouttheband.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/girlscouttheband

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlscouttheband/

The post LIVE review – Girl Scout (Sweden) @ Canvas, Manchester, 30 September 2023 appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

Siv eats angst for breakfast. Her albums are riddled with it and especially her most recent one, ‘Gardening’, which formed the bulk of this twice rearranged 15-song show. But her live performance is so delightfully presented that the torment, even though it is right there in the lyrics, just floats away while she’s a better comedian than some of the stand-up professionals that I’ve seen at the Frog & Bucket 50 yards up the road.

Next time she’s here she should double up. A new career beckons.

The stage was kitted out like the Garden of Eden, complete with tweeting birds (the feathered kind, not Elon Musk), the “extreme gardening” as she put it symbolic of the most recent album and the work she’s had to do, both literally within her own garden in Norway and metaphorically to put out of her mind at least one individual she’d rather forget; the one who is the subject of the album. You do get the impression that she is unlucky in love.

Something else that became evident this time around that I’d missed on previous occasions, probably because I’d been much further away from the stage, is the quality of her voice and delivery.

Because her lyrics can be a little on the depressing side, and sometimes disturbing too, especially where violence is involved (against her, ‘Romain’s Place’ is a good example), you do tend to overlook her ability to change the vocalisation subtly, mid sentence, to emphasise or de-emphasise as required. She does live what she is singing and you can actually see that in her facial expressions as you might with an actor.  

In ‘Blue’ she redefined ‘ethereal’ with a succession of notes that were still hanging in the air after she’d finished and then held another one in ‘Blanket’ (a solo effort while the band took a break – “just stare at them to make them uncomfortable” she quipped) that was exquisite.

While the audience was still recovering from that, she channeled Joni Mitchell so well on ‘Crazy’ that the Canadian could have been stood right there next to her.

There is quite a lot of self-harmonising on Siv’s albums and to get anywhere near mimicking it live requires having a talented musician and vocalist alongside you. So kudos to Hedda Aronssen who was the second voice in many songs as well as deftly playing piano and synthesiser. Also to drummer Oli Hardaker, a dab hand at the delicate percussion that her work requires, especially around the cymbals, and who has the ability to make a military beat sound like a lullaby.

Together they transposed what can be quite complex recorded orchestral compositions into something appropriate to the show.

The set opened with ‘Fear the Fear’, a fascinating song which in itself suggests the sort of over thinking about which she chastises herself. There is a wonderful line in it, “I fear the ness in happiness”.

It touches on her tendency to hang out in her own head and stay there, worrying about something or other in a constant, stressful loop and the nagging sensation that she wouldn’t be able to create well if she was well, happy, content with herself, and her life.

Well she seemed happy enough tonight and there was no lack of creativity, in her performance or her little asides. Perhaps Siv is finally coming to terms with who she is, just playing catch up with what her appreciative audience already knows.

Siv Jakobsen finishes her UK tour in Bristol (25 May – The Louisiana); Birmingham (26 May, Sunflower Lounge); and Leeds (28 May, Brudenell Social Club).

Find her on:

Website: http://www.sivmusic.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/listentosiv

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sivmusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sivjakobsen/

The post Live show review – Siv Jakobsen (Norway) – Gullivers Manchester, 24 May appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

It’s time for another Weekend Intermission and how better to spend a Saturday night away from the computer and Match of the Day than by watching a legend, and one from a sub-genre that wasn’t to the best of my knowledge replicated in the Nordics (except perhaps by Hugh Cornwell when he lived in Sweden as a scientific research boffin).

I always liked The Stranglers and their slightly edgy but always melodic and punchy material without ever committing by way of a record purchase. I suspect many others were like me. I could never quite nail them. Ostensibly ‘punk’, there were elements of prog and even psych in their work which were particularly evident on early albums.

But Hugh Cornwell wasn’t here tonight to promote that; or The Stranglers generically. He’s had a solo career for over 30 years with 10 albums to his credit including last year’s ‘Moments of Madness’ which was showcased heavily in the first set.

Yes, the first. There were two, punctuated by a 20-minute break, and supplemented by a lengthy encore as well. The band (Cornwell on guitar plus bass and drums) must have got through a show that was 30 songs in length (I eventually lost count), and at pace; the 11pm curfew stipulation was easily met.

He might have gone straight from the Academy to another show somewhere else for all I know. He’s still got the energy.

He’s 73 now, the same age as that bloke who got crowned earlier in the day but he’s kept himself trim and fit. He could easily be 10 years younger. When I look at people like Cornwell and Steve Hackett (another 73-year old) and the rigours they put themselves through with heavy touring when some of their peers are in nursing homes, I wonder why too many young bands seem to think a four-town tour is quite enough for a year. But that debate’s for another time.

The reason for having two sets immediately became obvious when you looked around the (sold out) venue, which was populated by those ‘of a certain age.’ To be more specific there were few under the age of 50, other than where sons and daughters had been dragged along (and more than willingly, from what I observed). And the median age must have been much higher.

Of course that often means bladders which can’t last the distance like they used to and there were a fair few folk hopping around as the first set neared its conclusion. I thought at first it must be a new dance Hugh had patented. Then as it ended it was as if the fire alarm had gone off as half the audience swarmed the doors like the Impi warriors in ‘Zulu’ at Rorke’s Drift. And some of them didn’t come back.

One guy stopped uncomfortably to ask me if I remembered going through an entire festival without needing a toilet break rather than scrambling for one after a few minutes before disappearing back into the stampede. I’m still trying to remember, but you see, I’m one of them, and memories get hazy…

There were characters by the dozen. Propped against the bar at the back was a guy with a Cockney accent in a studded leather jacket right out of the 70s who could have been Mad Frankie Fraser’s brother. An identikit Ian Dury strolled by, then Captain Birdseye put in an appearance.

To be honest, with all of my recent gigs being populated almost exclusively by ‘yoof’, it was heaven. The crowd provided as much entertainment as the artist.

Where the artist is concerned (I got there eventually), I was taken by surprise at how laid back and chilled out Hugh Cornwell and his band were, early doors. Mindful of The Stranglers’ high energy performances I expected him to come in with all guns blazing but bluesy opener ‘Coming out of the wilderness’, also the opening track of ‘Moments of Madness’, was surprisingly sedate. That said, being right at the back, with the volume not too high and amongst a noisy bar hubbub didn’t help.

That didn’t last song. As the material unfolded the breadth of his musical scope became apparent. ‘Moments of madness’ the song could have been played by Madness. ‘Stuck in Daily Mail Land’ has all the hallmarks of XTC, including the vocalisation. ‘Mr Leather’ has the lyrical smartness of Carter USM.

The audience was a little slow to react, even prompting Hugh to comment “complete silence!” as he introduced one song, but the tempo began to pick up from ‘Under her spell’ and with the odd guitar solo and an occasional bit of impressive shredding accompanying songs that were distinctly rockier.

Something that occurred to me during this first set is that some of his pieces might benefit from the addition of a rhythm guitar or better still keys when played live. They’re fine in the recorded versions but sounded a tad thin on stage.

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of the audience were there to hear Stranglers songs first and foremost, and that shouldn’t be taken as a slight on Hugh in anyway. The aforementioned Hackett, for all the magnificence of his solo creations since he left Genesis, knows that work will always play second fiddle to Gabriel-era Genesis classics in his shows today.

And right from the start of the second set the now relieved audience was treated to the fairground ride-like and eerie ‘Waltz in Black’, recorded back in 1981 just as the prog wave reached its own ‘end of the beginning’ and the punk movement had settled in its place.

Thereafter this set and the encore saw a wave of Stranglers songs including ‘Nice ‘n sleazy’, which sounded like an amalgam of Wilson, Keppel and Betty’s ‘Sand Dance’, ‘Tusk’ and ‘Psycho Killer’; ‘Sverige’, the Swedish language version of ‘Sweden – all quiet on the eastern front’ (which no-one apart from Hugh could understand); ‘Goodbye Toulouse’; ‘Skin Deep’; ‘Strange Little Girl’; ‘Hanging Around’; ‘Always the Sun’; ‘Duchess’; and ‘Golden Brown’.   

Regrettably there was no ‘No more Heroes’ but I get the impression it might have been junked from most set lists these days. What we did get though was a stonking bass solo, guitar and vocal parts in ‘Golden Brown’ that were sublime, more extreme guitar shredding and an instrumental track, ‘Yellowcake UF6’, which I’d never heard before, which is a remake of another song played backwards, and which lies somewhere to the left of what King Crimson were doing 30 years earlier.

Quite how they managed to replicate it on the night I haven’t yet figured out.

You know, the saddest thing I saw was on the way out – a deserted merch stand, save for its operative. Perhaps it was busy at other times, I hope so. The merchandise –  vinyl albums for a tenner, CDs a fiver – wasn’t expensive. It reinforced what I mentioned earlier, that most of the audience were there to hear the Stranglers songs and that particular merchandise wasn’t on the market.

That will often be the case with rock stars who continue into their dotage but it’s a shame when that artist is still producing very listenable songs.

Find him on:

Website: http://www.hughcornwell.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hughcornwellofficial

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HughCornwell

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The post Weekend Intermission – Hugh Cornwell – live at Manchester Academy 3, 6th May appeared first on Nordic Music Central.

I know from past experience that Icelanders work hard and play hard but Vök go well beyond that. They put in such a shift that they completed a 20-song set, including three in the encore, in an hour and 20 minutes. That must be some sort of record. And if they ‘play’ to the same degree it must have been dawn when they staggered out of the bar.

This brief UK tour (they are at Oslo in London as I write this) is followed by an immediate dash off to SXSW in Austin, where I’m sure they’ll light up the Texan capital as they did here.

Speaking of lighting, their onstage set-up was as sophisticatedly simple, if you’ll pardon the oxymoron, as I’ve ever seen, consisting of about a dozen thin vertical tubes that flashed on and off throughout the set in a variety of colours, at times exploding into a Roman Candle firework effect. Living proof that you don’t need to spend your entire live show budget on a myriad of spots.

Unfortunately it did leave the stage a little dim at times, or so I thought until I realised that I was looking at it through a plastic screen up, in the mezzanine, that hadn’t been washed since B.C. (before Covid) by the look of it. It’s over three years since I was last in the Deaf and it obviously needs a lick of paint. Come on lads, many bands have played here at the start of monumental careers; it’s an icon, so make it look iconic.

Vök aren’t one of those bands; they are well into their career with three EPs and three full-length albums behind them, including the eponymously titled ‘Vök’ (September 2022) which was the underlying reason behind this tour.

That said they played a set covering their full portfolio. The little research I managed before the show advised me to expect ‘dream pop’ and ‘indie-electronica’. What I saw and heard embraced much more than that, from (unexpectedly) soft-centred almost ballad-like songs to the sultry and sensuous, to out and out bangers; they cover the entire pop/rock spectrum.

Margrét (Magnúsdóttir) is more than a mere front woman; as the only vocalist and a musical contributor on keys and synth pads to boot most of the attention falls on her. And that attention is amplified by an outfit that is somewhere between a prison uniform and pyjamas, and the sort of tinted glasses you’d expect to find on a villain in an Austin Powers movie. An International Woman of Mystery.

But guitarist Einar (Stefánsson) and drummer Bergur (Dagbjartsson) do more than play their part, providing a scintillating overture to the pre-recorded parts of the songs. Dagbjartsson in particular impressed me with his complex yet effortless rhythms.

The set was too long to go into in detail (and I can’t read my own writing anyway) so I’ll focus on the highlights as I experienced and remember them. ‘Headlights’, which has been issued as a single, combined melody, anthem and dance-ability in one package while ‘In the dark’ had possibly the best hook of the night.

‘Lose Control’, which was dedicated by Margrét “to all the lesbians out there” (and there were quite a few in the audience) is really a banger live.

The single Icelandic song of the night, ‘Ég Bíð þín’, (‘I wait for you’), turned out to be one of my personal favourites. I’ve been trying to avoid referencing any other Icelandic artists or bands but the delivery of this highly atmospheric yet bleak, angst-ridden song, especially the vocals, had the mark of early Björk stamped right through it while Dagbjartsson delivered a master class in how to deliver an attention-grabbing rhythm out of a common time beat.

‘Round 2’ finished off the main set with a rollicking finale.

 But it was mere seconds before they were back on stage for a three song encore which underlined their diversity, starting with ‘Breaking Bones’, which I can best describe as modern prog, the sort of thing the original King Crimson might have been doing now.

Then ‘Before’, which, aptly, has shades of New Order in both the guitar and percussion, after which they rounded off the evening with a tribute to GusGus with a cover of ‘Higher’.

The longer the show went on the more I realised that I’m at the start of a journey with Vök, a trip down that rabbit hole to use the popular expression, because there is far more to them than could be revealed in this universe, tonight.

My only regret is that Margrét didn’t talk to the audience a little bit more. It isn’t for lack of confidence, she has oodles of that; it’s more that I think that, like most Icelanders, she could be a fascinating raconteur if she put her mind to it.

And that brings me to my final point, which is that the acid test of any band playing abroad is that they should at least invoke an image of their country in their songs and how they perform them. Did Vök do that? You bet they did.

They’re so Icelandic that I can imagine them stopping off at a roadside Troll bar on Highway 41 between Keflavik Airport and Reykjavik on their way home and chatting with the assorted Huldufólk there about how it pissed it down during every single minute of their stay in Manchester.

Support on the night was provided by Audrey’s Dance, a female duo not from Iceland but from Preston, which is at least on the way there. If they’d have continued the Preston By-pass/M6 northwards it would have gotten to Iceland by now.

I don’t know how they acquired the name but I do know that ‘Audrey’s Dance’ was a song in Twin Peaks, so perhaps there’s a connection there?

The singer (sorry I don’t know their names either) immediately endeared me by sinking a pint. None of this fancy wine or spring water in’t north, lad.

They offer mainly slow and quite compelling ballads (‘sad pop’ as they call it) and her alto voice hits the spot consistently. With a tad more stage presence it could have been Weyes Blood up there.

I’m assuming that the material is mainly their own, but the rendition of Bat for Lashes’ ‘Laura’ was sublime. Natasha Khan would have been drooling.

Find them on:

(Vök)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vokband

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vokmusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vokmusic/

(Audrey’s Dance)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AudreysDance/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vokmusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audreysdancemusic/

The post <strong>Live review: Vök (Iceland) @ The Deaf Institute Manchester 13th March 2023</strong> appeared first on Nordic Music Central.