Here we are, less than a week of February left. It is always the same, the slow drag of January followed by the breakneck, blink and it's gone blur of February. Not long now before the first of March heralds the beginning of (meteorological) Spring - at least in the northern hemisphere.
I trekked up to Bristol (again) last night for another gig. An odd one. Maria Somerville, an Irish musician, with a couple of solo support acts. Maria's new album, Luster, is good - her style is described as shoegaze or as Discogs.com succintly describes the genre: an overwhelmingly loud sound, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappear into the walls of guitars, creating a wash of sound where no instrument is distinguishable from the other.
For me, I'd describe Luster as more Cocteau Twins style of dream pop/ethereal than what Discogs says. However, last night hit the description dead on. Vocals were swallowed up in the sound, disappearing low into the mix. Apart from, that is, two or three songs where Maria's vocals were to the fore. Overall quite a short set. I would have liked another twenty or thirty minutes.
As for the two support acts, Georgia Musack was the better, I thought. Loved that at the end of her set she packed up her equipment into three supermarket carrier bags. Now that is travelling light! The second support act, Nashpaints - OMG. Stop it with the ambient noodling! I mean was it noodling or were you just endlessly re-tuning your guitar? There were bits I liked but it all felt like, hey, I've got some effects pedals and look, I can put these chords through the looper and then the echo pedal and that's the song...
Moving on. I have added to Petticoat Searchers/Runcible Briggs and noodled (no more, please!) with the text before chap. 9 to correct/add a few things. More work is still needed but this is the first draft, so anything can happen/change. It's all fluid, Bob. Who's Bob? No idea. As ever, there is a link on the main page for an unnavigable pdf.
Let's finish. Some pics from last night. I didn't take many and didn't grab any useable ones of the supports acts.
Maria and her band and underneath, a quick retune.
