A good night at the H&P, started off by Glasgow-based Kim Grant, aka Raveloe.
Her solo set (voice and guitar) went down very well early doors, with BM’s personal favourite tonight being 2021 track ‘New House’, which melds folk and frustrated Rrriot Girrl phrasings to carve out a yearning song for these times… Kim’s guitar playing tonight was something special and there is so much potential here – raw talent in yer face!
Next up was another Glasgow-based artist, Alisha Sha, who has at least one EP under her belt. BM has witnessed her playing solo with guitar but tonight she added one female backing vocalist plus a digital theremin player to the mix. The atonal phrasings of the guitar and vocals are very interesting and maybe not to everyone’s taste, but there is a real originality here, with shades of other spooky folk stylings coming down the years (Incredible String Band, Fairport and others) – a challenging but ultimately rewarding listen.
The headliner tonight has been a BM favourite for several years now – Jill O’Sullivan, aka Jill Lorean, started her musical career with Sparrow and the Workshop but has now graduated to the JL moniker. Her solo shows have been stunning but this full band show really was the bollocks. Playing with the guys she recorded her debut album ‘This Rock’ with, JL took the stage with (former Frabbit) Andy Monaghan on bass and Peter Kelly on drums, while JK herself played guitar and fiddle.
They started with album opener ‘The Breaking Down’, the tension palpable in this almost capacity crowd. JL’s voice is like a silver bullet, sweet and innocent but capable of the most extreme mutations of grief, anger and everything in between. The set mixed tracks from previous release ‘Not Your First’ with cuts from ‘This Rock’ – for BM they were all highlights but the moments where the band picked up the pace and Andy’s bass throbbed against the other two were just out of this world – ‘Beekeeping’ in particular has some gorgeous chord changes and mixes aggression, rage with sweetness and light. This is music of revelations and transformations, universal truths and lived experiences which resonate – but the main tonight was the sheet visceral energy of the playing…
BM has rarely seen such a commanding performance and if Jill does not get a Scottish Album of the Year BM will eat her hair extensions (BM’s, not Jill’s) – just sublime – no further live dates confirmed but watch this space…