Category: Music Review

Luke Sital-Singh at The Little Museum of Dublin – Review

Originally published on Goldenplec.com

Luke Sital-Singh in The Little Museum of Dublin: May 22nd 2013

When we think of music venues, we normally think of dark sweaty places where all too often you get to know your neighbour a little too much more than you had anticipated and a pint costs an arm and a leg. Trying to reinvent what we associate is a hard task but one The Little Museum of Dublin has tackled this head on, creating a listening venue and an ideal location for Luke Sital-Singh‘s first headline Dublin show.

Located on St. Stephen’s Green, The Little Museum is an old Georgian house and the where Sital-Singh’s show is held is a large room running from the front to the back of the house with an arch in the middle, almost dividing the room. It’s in this archway that the performers play on a raised platform with the audience sitting in angled rows either side, this gives the venue a capacity of about fifty or sixty and the unusually angled rows mean you don’t have to crane your neck for a decent view of the performer.

Opening for Sital-Singh this evening is Laura Ann Brady complete with her autoharp. Brady is a folk style singer songwriter in her own right but also a member of pyschedlic folkers ‘Lights Camera Sundown’. While we would be more used to seeing an opening act play guitar, the autoharp brings an extra dimension to Brady’s music. She admits that a lot of her songs are quite dark and she’s trying to ‘lighten them’ up. The darkness though, isn’t that noticeable as the bright frequencies of the autoharp counteract the lyrics. Brady shows herself to be a competent songwriter with a great voice, would like to see a longer set.

As Luke Sital-Singh gets ready to begin his set, the only sound in the venue is the buzz from his electric guitar amp. He begins his set with ‘I’ve been a Fire’ and from the outset, Sital-Singh shows a sincerity in how he delivers his lyrics, they mean something.

He changes from electric to acoustic guitar for ‘You Love, You Love’. The Little Museum is the perfect listening venue and throughout the night, Sital-Singh gives an amazing vocal performance, on ‘Honest Man’, stretching the higher registry of his vocals.

In between songs he jokes about where he is sitting, with the audience on their side saying “One of you is getting my best side”, refusing to say which side he thought that was and how he wrote ‘Luna’ about a killer whale. He gets a few giggles and his self deprecating humour means you can’t help but like him.

Londoner, Sital-Singh’s reputation has been growing over the past while and he has been working with Iain Archer in the studio. This is a great opportunity to hear songs from Sital-Singh’s two E.P.s, ‘Fail For You’ and ‘Old Flint’, in such a lovely venue, which despite being in the city centre, has a really relaxed atmosphere. The audience are polite, clapping at the appropriate times and not talking during the songs.

Luke treats the Little Museum audience to ‘a song he wrote yesterday’, he doesn’t reveal the title of the track but the folky upbeat song features the refrain ‘The Greatest Lovers’. When Sital-Singh pushes, there’s a slight huskiness to vocals. The song ends and Luke admits he wasn’t quite sure how he should end it, he shouldn’t have worried as it goes down a treat.

He swaps back to electric for ‘Dark’. While recorded, this is a piano led track, Sital-Singh’s rendition on guitar doesn’t in any way take away from the song and shows his versatility as well as the quality of his musicianship. Before his final track, Sital-Singh thanks the audience and seems quite humbled that people have come to see him play. He finishes with the heart wrenching ‘Fail for you’ with it’s ‘I have been your champion so why do you walk away’. The silence and peacefulness in the venue make the lyrics more poignant, amazing performance that left goosebumps.

This was a fantastic chance to see one of the UK’s most promising singer songwriters up close and personal. No wonder the audience were so attentive, chances are they’ll not have the opportunity to see Sital-Singh in a venue of this size again.

Have a listen to Luke’s EP ‘Old Flint’ on Deezer:

May 28, 2013
Maud in Cahoots: Live at The Ferocious Mingle Marcade – Review

Maud in Cahoots at The Ferocious Mingle Market: May 9th 2013

I hadn’t heard of The Ferocious Mingle Market recently, I had been walking up Thomas Street, a bloke in front of me suddenly stopped and turned to an entrance where a man, I presumed a bouncer, was standing. I wondered what was going on in there. Fast forward a little while and I too was entering this mysterious place for a special event. Maud in Cahoots‘ Dance With Me single launch.

Upon entering the cavernous venue, you realize that this is something quite special. A market with alongside a coffee shop boasts vintage, millinery and jewellery shops carefully packed away for tonight’s musical event. Cleverly and in theme with the video for the single people are slow dancing around the venue. While it seems the venue maybe long and narrow, once the band come to the stage, there’s a nice area in front of the stage which accommodated the 50 or so invited guests comfortably.

Maud in Cahoots are a curious entity. Fronted by sisters Maud (vocals/violin) and Zoe Reardon (cello) they have been described as ‘alternative pop’, while they do play intelligent, grown up pop music, they are backed up by instrumentation normally associated with a classical ensemble Yes, they have a bass player, an electric guitar, keys and a drummer and we’re familiar with a string section filling and rounding out the sound in pop songs, but they are joined but a tuba and briefly a trumpet.

An intimate show like this will obviously have friends of the band in the audience and this breaks the tension and makes Maud, who is doing the talking, a little more at ease, as she explains she was told to ‘tell anecdotes’ before saying ‘I’m not very good at this’. While she may not be entirely comfortable with in between song chat, Maud more than makes up for it with her vocal performance.

The band begin with ‘Breakdown’ and sets the tone for the rest of their short set. It’s dramatic, soulful, fantastically arranged and beautifully brought to life onstage with passion and vigor. ‘Make Me Right’ sees the trumpet introduced and from here it’s easy to see why their style of pop could fall under the ‘baroque pop’ moniker. The track rises and falls in what seems similar to classical movements. Maud comments that the track is the B side to Dance with Me and she’s right, it’s every bit as good as the A side.

Maud sits on the edge of the stage asking the audience if that’s OK. There’s a piano at the back of the stage and the notes start to fill the room. The other Cahoots begin slow dancing on the stage as Maud sings a hauntingly spellbinding version of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. Immense.

The assembled crowd show their appreciation and how good the cover was. The applause lingers, allowing the band to regroup as Maud announces ‘This is the single’. With the band in full flow, ‘Dance with me’ is danced to onstage and off. Its catchy, memorable and easy to sing along to as the audience proved. Great performance, great sound. Maud in Cahoots keep it short and sweet, giving enough to tempt you, enough for you to get to know them but leave you wanting more.

Maud In Cahoots have a great sound and are different to a lot of acts on the music scene. If they keep up with performances and songwriting of this standard, they’ll definitely be one to keep an eye on.

Photos taken with my phone..

Here’s the vid for Dance With Me.

May 13, 2013
Fossil Collective: Tell Where I Lie – Album Review

I sometimes get an anxious feeling when I go to listen to new material by an artist I’ve become familiar with. In this case, it’s Fossil Collective’s album ‘Tell Where I Lie’, I enjoyed their ‘Let it Go’ EP so much that I didn’t want to have a sinking feeling.

‘Tell Where I Lie’, opens with ‘Let It Go’, this obviously is a good start, settling in with what we know. The Leeds based duo of David Fendick and Jonny Hooker, alonside their collective friends, have a knack of taking their early seventies influences, adding contemporary qualities, little things in the production and turning it into something beautiful. ‘Under My Arrest’ starts off with a simple guitar/simple drum beat intro a a la Shaun Mullins and draws you in until you’re surrounded with beautiful harmonies.

Writing about music you don’t like is easy, writing about about something you’ve grown to love is hard and Fossil Collective have made this task extremely difficult, they’ve made me fall in love with their music.

Through the journey of ‘Tell Where I Lie’, the songwriting talents of FC and the warm production of the tracks wraps you in a safe blanket of goodness. They do wear their hearts on their sleeves, ‘Wolves’ displays a Fleetwood Mac influence (nothing wrong with that!) but even if you’re hearing these songs for the first time, there’s a familiarity with their melodies and guitar lines, you’ll be humming along by the end of the track. Fossil Collective are the kind of band Dave Grohl would love to record onto tape with his Neve desk.

Half way through the album, a natural end to side one if you will, ‘Monument’ boasts a simple starkness with acoustic guitar on one side, electric on the other, which leaves the vocals and beautifully subtle harmonies to shine through. The production on this track then cleverly uses reversed sounds before a fuller band sound emerges, simply stunning.

The upbeat ‘On and On’ then kicks off the next part of the record but it’s ‘The Magpie’, the longest track on the album that catches your scribe’s ears. The track starts off as an uptempo finger plucked acoustic track which builds up as other instruments are added to the mix and the layers of harmonies become heavenly. The track dies and slowly builds up again with instrumentation and vocal ‘ooohs’, to become a perfect Summer song.

The following track ‘How was I To Know’ is in complete contrast with its predecessor. It’s a simple acoustic guitar and vocal and sounds like it was recorded on location. Gentle harmonies and piano notes dot the soundscape for something pure which possesses a tangible realness. The album finishes with ‘In a Northern Sky’ and sees Fossil Collective in a reflective pensive mood, electric guitar with vocal harmonies washed in reverb.

As the last note dies, the first full chapter of the Fossil Collective story ends. I don’t have the sinking feeling I dreaded. This album is like an old friend, that reassures you everything will be ok, saying the right things at the right time. It’s the kind of album that leaves that fuzzy feeling with you long after it’s ended. It’s simply perfect.

Where Tell I Lie is out now. Fossil Collective play Whelan’s on Friday 10th May, tickets from ticketmaster.ie

May 9, 2013
John Grant: Live at Vicar St, Dublin – Review

This originally appeared on Goldenplec.com – John Grant at Vicar St. – May 3rd 2013

The scene was set. Friday night, the first night of the Bank Holiday weekend, John Grant in Vicar St seemed like it could be the perfect start especially given the reviews his current album ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ has received.

Liza Flume opens the night’s entertainment. Over the past while, Flume has received much praise and it’s easy to see why. The first song of her set ‘In Time’, has the Dublin based Aussie singer live looping guitar and vocals, adding to each layer as the song progresses. She cleverly harmonizes with her own sampled vocals before all samples are removed leaving Flume singing a cappella before the reaching the crescendo with the full force of her acoustic guitar.

Flume’s voice has an endearing quality, pure but with a little bit of grit which make her lyrics and songs believable and honest. The audience are treated to tracks from Flume’s current EP ‘Full Steam Ahead’ but also get a cover of Robyn’s ‘With Every Heartbeat’, which is given the trademark Flume treatment of sampled layers to produce something special. The set is ends with ‘What We Call Love’, a catchy memorable song brought along by a finger click rhythm. Flume shows great potential as a performer and a songwriter and true talent in arranging her own material. Put her on your ‘must check out’ list.

The opening bars of ‘You Don’t Have To’ fill the auditorium as John Grant comes to the stage, however when he goes to sing into the microphone, there’s no sound, after an impressive non panicked adjustment of cables by one of the band, all is right with the world. The bass synth sound on the track and sampled rhythms dominate many of the track Grant plays from his current album ‘Pale Green Ghosts’.

As he finishes his first track he comments on how ‘lovely it is to be here’ but also how frustrating it is that he doesn’t get to see much of the city. Grant currently lives in Iceland and four of his five band members hail from the island, the fifth, his keyboard player, Chris comes from Coventry.

The downbeat ‘Vietnam’ follows. The bearded Grant is dressed casually, jeans and a polo shirt and trainers with illuminious soles and laces, which glow under the stage lights. Throughout the show he dances and moves from microphone to the keyboards on the left of the stage to play during the instrumental breaks. Layers of electronic sounds and samples are laid on top of a traditional band set up of guitar, bass, keys and drums.

Grant is a likeable character, he jokes that he’s going to an Alice Cooper cover and how he loves the aforementioned bass synth sound so much he would ‘put it on his cornflakes in the morning’. He also acknowledges his HIV status during the set and his inbetween song words alongside his soul baring lyrics easily bridge the gap between stage and audience, who obviously have been listening to ‘Pale Green Ghosts’, the title track gets a cheer from the opening notes as does hte highly danceable ‘Sensitive New Age Guy.’

Sinead O’Connor appears on four tracks from Pale Green Ghosts so it’s not too much of a surprise when she appears onstage, the crowd still go into overdrive. O’Connor sing barefoot and wears a ‘GMF’ tshirt from Grant’s merch stand. ‘It Doesn’t Matter to Him’ follows ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’ and O’Connor’s backing vocals are immaculate, reminding us that she is one of our isle’s gems.

Grant and O’Connor seem very comfortable on stage together and she seemed to get a kick out of singing the ‘I am the greatest MotherF…’ O’Connor leaves the stage during ‘I hate this town’ only to be seen dancing at the side of the stage. Grant is quick to point out that the song is ‘not about this town’ and how his own song reminds him of Abba’s Chiquitita and a dance move he once saw Frida do on TV. Grant is dancing onstage and doing this weird ‘Frida clap’, the audience back him up well.
But it’s the piano led ‘Glacier’ that gets the crowd to their feet.

Grant gives a tender vocal performance, while Ms O’Connor goes from backing singer to taking charge on a verse. As the track builds towards, the petit O’Connor steps on Grants feet and the pair dance around the stage in a bear hug. The only way they can finish this set is with ‘Queen of Denmark’, two fantastic vocal performances, together one one stage, making a great song even better. An trio of songs provide the audience with an encore, ‘Where Dreams Go To Die’, ‘TC & Honeybear’ and ‘Caramel’ bring the evening to a close.

As Grant leaves the stage, the rapturous applause continues until the house lights brighten the venue. An amazing night’s music and quite an extraordinary connection with the audience. One to remember.

May 8, 2013