While the rest of Glasgow basked in the searing heat, for some of us it was up the stairs to the small but perfectly-formed performance space which is The Old Hairdressers venue for a full night’s entertainment.
The triple bill started with Fife-raised, Glasgow-dwelling Ember Quine doing a selection of track mainly from her recorded but not as-yet released debut album. Freya has in the past worked as part of the Woodwife project but this material is all hers, and she started with a travelling guitar, put though some form of effect unit to give a slightly spectral sound. Her vocals were strong, very expressive and at times powerful, although some difficulties were encountered mid-set (she struggled but ultimately powered through with the encouragement of the audience, seated but very lively, and pretty much filling the room). Further songs had electronic backing of synth and percussion (plus a vocal backing track at times), getting quite dancey at times as well, but the overall atmosphere of these songs is quite dark, cathartic and doomy, with definite shades of PJ Harvey, downbeat Amanda Palmer and even Nick Cave. ‘She Said’ was visceral and the penultimate song (maybe called ‘Whatever That Is’) was almost anthemic, while the sotto voce ‘Sweet Bird’ was just beautiful to witness and pretty much brought the house down – let’s hope that album gets a release and soon.
Next on was Rebecca Wallace, on acoustic guitar (often looped) and other devices (one song even had a wee techno workout at the end), appearing tonight with multi-instrumentalist Clare on clarinet and keys (whose Mina Merrow alter-ego BM managed to miss the other month, dammit!). BM has seen BW a number of times and tonight was just bowled over by the quality of the songwriting which to these hears was reminiscent of classic Paul Simon, among other things. She played a couple of her very best (‘To The Water’ and the spellbinding ‘Focus’) along with some new offerings including “The Wood Between…” and a therauputic one about being calm in the face of phobias (she admitted she was flying abroad the following day and was terrified). And that voice, instantly recognisable but also a distant cousin of Joanna Newsom… just amazing, as usual.
The reason for this gig in the first place was it was the EP launch for Dora and Jonni, whose ‘Weather Balloons’ release was out the following day. A musical duo (although they have done solo stuff), they moved here last year (they are respectively from The Netherlands and England) and have quietly established themselves as something like Glasgow’s answer to Everything But The Girl… Playing tonight with drummer Doug, they used extensive and very effective visual projections. The EP varies from folkpop of the title track to a mock-lounge interlude with cheesy advert visuals tonight. Tracks like ‘Braver The You’ do however have a more sinuous quality that combines pop, Americana and some other unique DNA.
After the EP tracks there followed several more, some Jonni solo material and some Dora as well as their first single from last year. There is some decent commercial potential in the EP and all these tracks – the songs are good, the playing is great and there’s a definite alchemy when they perform together which will appeal to wide audiences. They also survived being heckled (in a positive and hilarious way) by one of their own support acts, always a rite of passage! Last track ‘To Moon and Mars’ was accompanied by a hilariously low-budget space travel epic video… and that was it for now.
Respect due also tonight to Duncan on sound, not an easy job with three very different acts.