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Sweet Baboo/Sparrowhawks at Telford's Warehouse, Chester
Adam Walton
It was a gig I'll be trying to remember the flavour of for as long as tiny electrical pulses are prepared to dance across my cerebral cortex.
Islet/Mowbird - Central Station Wrexham, Thursday 24 May 2012
Adam Walton
It's too hot to breathe, let alone listen to molten, leftfield, musical aceness. Central Station has a tin roof and tonight all of the cats are inside being baked. As Mowbird plug their instruments in, I'm dreaming of being reincarnated as a salmon, leaping out of chill, frothy waters on my way to a spawning ground up near the Arctic Circle. Or an ice cream bath. Mowbird are surf twang gone so wrong, it's right; Guided By Voices distracted by UFO tail lights; liberated garage punks grottying canvases in an art school studio. They start off Shaky and finish Jerry Lee Lewis. They're The Castaways' Liar Liar in a Molotov Cocktail aimed at SyCo HQ. Metaphorically speaking, of course. So, despite an apparent lack of familiarity with their own songs at the start of the set, they still have tunes to dye your hair for. Scratchy, fuzzy things that burst and pop with off kilter melodies half inched from the B movies of a parallel dimension. Or The Pixies' first two albums. I really need to learn some contemporary reference points. So much of the music I hear is overboiled tasteless by its own competence: bands who've sacrificed the fun out of it all before the Altar of Sheen. Even David Beckham - a man who looks like he could find his own visage in a coal forest on a cloudclad, midwinter night - would struggle to see his reflection in Mowbird. They are great fun. Wrexham cocks up the B-52's, more-or-less magnificently. Mowbird Imagine if The Vaccines had a whiff of freshness about them, rather than the antiseptic odour of a Q journalist's impeccably right-on record collection of 'edgy' music. But Guided By Voices is my favourite comparison, of too many. Sorry. Influential labels are sniffing around their impeccable crotches. They might want to give it a few days and a couple of showers after this sweatfest, though. Trying to breathe at the merchandise stall - counting pound coins in my pocket to see if I have enough for a fresh t-shirt - I am suddenly surrounded by chimes. Mark Islet is behind me. Another Islet is sat at the table across the room. They've playing some weird bell-like things, like campanologists from Hamlyn. We all stop what we're doing (bar the breathing) and allow them to lead us to the stage. If Islet were magicians they wouldn't make things disappear or appear - that'd be too obvious. They'd make things evolve in front of our eyes. Even an aged hack like me, steeped in decades of strange, communally-fashioned music mostly from Germany - can ear-smell the aural freshness here. It's no wonder they eschew most of the tropes of modern band-dom. No Tweets, no Facebook, no obvious entry, or exit, points. 'Songs' so nebulous, yet all there, they'd have Thom Yorke locking himself in his yurt, crying luminous green tears. Because whilst Islet are, no doubt, conceptual, and pretentious, and art school, and dangerously close to being dressed in new togs that would fit Eeyore emperors, they're also - you know - really, really, REALLY good. They may spend their entire set torching the rock 'n' roll rulebook, but that - no longer - comes across as their raison d'etre. Perhaps it never was, but it was the impression they gave off, in those early days of self-marooning themselves at the periphery of what we loosely call rock 'n' roll. When an instrument gets swapped tonight, and a face changes place on the stage, it's in subservience to the music, not as an affectation to make the audience gape at the audacious unexpectedness of it all. There is a great sense of infinite possibility about the band. The album tracks act only as templates for the actual performance. Some things stutter, as should be expected on the first night of any tour (Entwined Pines trips over its own aceness), other things take on a mystical life of their own, transforming Central Station's pragmatic, sulphuric innards into one of Live And Let Die's voodoo cermonies, but with more drums and distorted synth. It's mostly about rhythm - and how primal and hypnotic rhythms can be intertwining within and without each other. This has far more in common with the less regimented, more experimental, edges of dance music than it does 'indie' music. Thank god for that. I'd hope that exposure to Islet would give a Pigeon Detective, or an Enemy, a non-fatal aneurysm that'd make it catatonically impossible for them to dull the world with their flavourless bum gruel any longer. Islet One completely transcendental moment that comes readily to mind, even today, five days and two hangovers after the event: Emma standing centre stage, singing down two different microphones: one lathered in a dubby delay, the other as clean as a new pair of white jeans. She switches between the two, on an ever undulating tapestry of noise, with a glorious smile on her face. It's as clear as the big, red, peeling nose on the end of my moonface, that the first people Islet want to amaze and confound is themselves. We're just fortunate to be invited along for the ride. So, they're not so much leftfield, as in a skylift high above the field. subject to hitherto uncharted jetstreams of sound and rhythm. And great as the début album is on many occasions, this is soooooo much better. Live, they justify any extra vowels thrown in their direction, trust me. A fresh breeze of possibility and excellence has blown through Central Station tonight. Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other BBC blog, you will need to sign in to your BBC iD account. If you don't have a BBC iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of BBC sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about BBC iD, or get some help with registering.
Richard James, Gareth Bonello - Telfords, Chester, 1 May 2012
Adam Walton
Gareth Bonello is natural music. That's not great English, but a perfect summation of the man. In The Wire ("the Greatest TV Show Ever Made"� - The Guardian reviews section) those with a natural inclination to protect and serve their districts are called 'natural police'. Gareth has a natural inclination to bewitch and move his audience. He is 'natural music'. Grammar and syntax can go jump themselves upside the river. As subtly wondrous as his guitar playing is, it's always subservient to the song, and - in particular - his voice. Gareth has a voice like a broken heart. It's stained with resignation, eroded by cruel winds, challenging gravity like those unfathomable rock edifices in Monument Valley. It's one of the great Welsh voices. But it's a storyteller's voice rather than a singer's voice. And all the better for that. The obvious, internationally-recognised reference points for his music - Nick Drake, John Martyn, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - are somewhat misleading because this is a music steeped in Wales. It's mysterious with early morning mist obscuring the valley's sides; burnished by the sunrise trying to break through. There is a timeless gravitas that comes from Gareth's knowledge of the history of song in Wales. There are words and musical phrases that resonate, regardless of their age. There are no awkward concessions to contemporaneity, no baubles of modernism. Gareth is like a dry stone waller, or a traditional carpenter, there is an elemental, timeless truth to his work that makes it especially resonant and valuable in our age of the temporary, shallow and ephemeral. His opening song Aubade is about as close as I've ever heard to my soul's harmonic frequency. He plays it, and it vibrates tears, yearning and regret out of every pore. Oh Lord, I love great music - simultaneously hurting and healing in the same cadence. Richard James is tonight's headliner. "I'm going to be playing some songs from an album that was released two weeks ago, and some other songs that haven't been released yet, with Gareth Bonello and Andy Fung. A lot of these songs are quite, erm, well - I dunno - without being too articulate about it, erm, miserable... so, you're in for a treat! It's about the misery of the heart. I think they're joyous as well..." And so begins one of the most magical hours of music I have ever witnessed. The sound is so quiet and delicate that the audience bend, as one, closer to the stage, like sunflower heads craning towards a source of light and life. Richard James mightn't feel articulate speaking about his music but there are few as musically articulate. And - like many of the greatest artists - he works his spells within a deliberately self-limited range. Gorky's - his former band - were a supernova of creative thought, more ideas in single songs than some artists manage in entire lifespans. There were bells, whistles, school orchestras, xylophones, sword mangels and recorders: an entire rainbow of wildly enthusiastic sounds. Wonder and possibility radiated from every note. It's somewhat amazing to consider that we had them and Super Furry Animals at the same time. A Facebook friend opined recently that music's golden age ended in 1979, and that nothing of equable worth had happened since; well, she can't have been listening to Gorky's or the Furries from 1996 until the middle of the last decade, because that's as high a watermark as any. Hmmm. Gorky's is Richard's past. He's been making superlative solo albums for the best part of a decade. But his evolution, from exuberant school kid set free in a sweet shop of the imagination, to an artist of great capability and restraint, who wields less with an emotive power that is the match of the more, more, more thrills of his youth, is a fascinating one. So we have two guitars, three voices, one bongo (or some such, sorry Andy!), an occasional harmonica, and sometime unique use of a pair of sunglasses/beerglass, in conjunction with the unnamed drum. But within that apparently limited range, we get a panoramic tour of the infinite vistas of the heart. I've rarely seen an audience as attentive as this most excellent of audiences is. I swear, on occasion the music is as hushed as whispers on a breeze, but no one makes a sound. No one dares breathe. The sound of my camera's shutter is louder than the drum. Drawing us all more and more into the music's irresistible undertow. When Richard sings his "most miserable" song (which may be called Down To My Heart, but there are fleas with a better memory for names than me) I think we could all - to a man and a woman - die in that eternal moment - melancholic and content. I think this music, this sensation, is priceless because it reminds us all that we're not alone. The high fallutin' call it pathos, or bathos - whatever the correct terminology is - it's a musketeer of hope and empathy. The guitars are subtle shimmers, the unnamed drum a heartbeat, the voice an irresistible glow. Music this nakedly human is rare. If you want a signpost, think Neil Young's Harvest. Then we're in the midst of a 10 minute raga, sucking our souls to metaphysical places of hallucinatory wonder. Shamanistic and about as good as human artistic endeavour can get. Please don't make the mistake of thinking I'm exaggerating. This was the Sistine Chapel in acoustic guitar; Monet in minor thirds; a series of plaintive, folk sonnets that Shakespeare would have stood to applaud. My gauchely-lobbed hyperbole is in inverse proportion to how subtly exquisite this was. All of it. Thank you Richard. Thank you Gareth. Thank you Andy. Thank you ears. Thank you heart. Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other BBC blog, you will need to sign in to your BBC iD account. If you don't have a BBC iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of BBC sites and services using a single login. Need some assistance? Read about BBC iD, or get some help with registering.
Lostprophets, Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, 28 April 2012
James McLaren
As a homecoming present to their Welsh audience, they said they'd play Start Something, their second album, in its entirety. They promised us a special show. They delivered, in spades. Ian Watkins of Lostprophets Lostprophets, touring their fifth album Weapons, have a formidable canon...
Lostprophets Start Something for Cardiff show
James McLaren
Pontypridd's Lostprophets have today confirmed today that their 28 April homecoming show at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena will be a special one-off, with their modern rock classic second album Start Something being played in its entirety. Lostprophets Bassist Stuart Richardson told us: "...
From Eurovision to cross-country busking for Welsh duo
James McLaren
He might have represented Cyprus at Eurovision in 2010, but these days Jon Lilygreen is making an unusual start to his major-label quest for music stardom. Lilygreen and Jon Maguire - as the duo Lilygreen And Maguire - have recently signed to Warner Brothers records, and are currently on a bu...
Welsh acts for Hard Rock Calling
James McLaren
Two Welsh acts have been added to the supporting bill for this summer's Hard Rock Calling in London's Hyde Park. Kids In Glass Houses Kids In Glass Houses will line up as support for Seattle legends Soundgarden on Friday 13 July. Aled Phillips of Kids In Glass Houses told us: "We'r...
Joy Formidable tour diary - day five
Adam Walton
So, to my last day with The Joy Formidable. Typical that I should get used to the touring bus lifestyle on my final day with them. I slept last night; if not like a baby, well, like a big-sideburned toddler. The trip from Philadelphia to Boston takes over seven hours, so we're still in transi...
Sonisphere cancelled
James McLaren
Hertfordshire rock festival Sonisphere has been cancelled, organisers have confirmed this morning. Skindred The Knebworth event was meant to have taken place on 6-8 July, featuring Welsh bands The Blackout and Skindred alongside the likes of Kiss, Faith No More and Queen. It was th...
Julie Murphy, Theatr Clwyd, Mold - Thursday 15 March 2012
Adam Walton
I don't know anything about folk music, not really. I know I'm not much inspired by the folk stereotype: someone lost in the past with a finger in their ear. But using stereotypes to judge music is asinine: you could consign all country and western into a bin marked Billy Ray Cyrus, and all dubs...
