UNCLE FRITZ + COPY HAHO + ESPERI + THE A FOREST - Balcony Bar, Dundee 30-11-06
The Balcony Bar is normally a haven for anything remotely extremely metallic, yet the first and only time I was bowled over by The A Forest was here, many moons ago, and I've not been able to see them since. Thus, it was with some anticipation - and turning down the regular Thursday night at Yuppies, not to mention the wonderful Sergeant and Rush Hour Soul at the Westie - that I roamed off to catch this concert.
Did I say concert? Well, in a way, I guess it was......... well, of course it was - it just didn't feel like one....oh, you'll see what I mean - just carry on.....
First up was Uncle Fritz - Uncle Fritz is one guy on acoustic guitar and vocals. He began to sing - a few of us thought it was a soundcheck until the composition ended and we realised it wasn't - since he'd just sauntered up to the mic and begun without saying a word. We clapped. He said something and began another. Now, Uncle Ftiz's songs are the Dundee answer to Leonard Cohen - yeh, we're talking relatively melancholic, dark of mood and and yet somehow quite memsmerising at the same time. You wouldn't want to go out and shoot yerself after the set - you'd just think about it. So, he sang and strummed in this vein for about 25 minutes and it was quite riveting for something so realtively gloomy. Not quite my cup of tea, but I found it more than listenable - and he even announced he'd just brought out an album if any of us wanted to buy it. I have to say, I passed on the idea - which, in hindsight was totaly the qrong thing to do as I have a friend who would love it - next time, Fritz, me boyo!!
After that - and I hope I've got this the right way round - were a trio called Copy Haho. Now if you think that's an odd name, you'd understanf completely if you heard them. Look - I've been around a loooooonnnngggg
time - heard most of it, seen even less - and yet here was a band playing a guitar-led iron brew of indie rock, during the entirety of whose performance, I was standing there absolutely riveted (there's a lot of riveting going on here) but wondering how on earth I was going to review them, as I could not think of one band I'd ever heard to which I could liken them. It was essentially indie-rock, but somehow angular yet not twisted, structured but at the same time out on a limb. The songs and playing rocked but you couldn't dance to it - in fact, you couldn't do anything to it other than stand there and take it all in, like some other worldly zoo exhibit. I still haven't a clue how to describe them, so go and see for yourself.
By now, I'm already thinking this is going to be a surreal evening - but even I couldn't have predicted, in my wildest dreams, what was coming next.
First off, this guy - long hair, headband, acoustic guitar - came to the front with this case - sorta like a guitar case only flatter - and out of it pulled what, from my perspective upstairs, looked like a range of individually coloured garden gnomes, only smaller and rounder. He then proceeds to place them in a row, at his feet, just below the mic stand. I'm once again riveted and starting to think that surreal is just the half of it. As if that wasn't enough, up comes this lady - a statuesque lady in a gorgeous dress with thick long blonde hair flowing down her shoulders - a violin in her possession and sets up to the right of the guitarist, who's not got a chair and is sitting down. The goddess on violin does a soundcheck. Meanwhile, a bassist and drummer have appeared, so any thoughts that it might be a bit folky have now turned into thoughts that it might be a bit folk-rock-y. They sit in place - no announcements - and begin. The rhythm section play it subtle, while the violin sort of weaves in and out of the mix but the main focus is the guy on guitar - strumming away slowly, he delivers a song that makes Uncle Fritz look positively jolly - this - and it has to be said, absolutely riveting - kind of mix of John Martyn, Leonard Cohen, Donovan and Nick Drake styled vocals - all of them on downers - not so much filled the air as dragged its leaden feet through it. It was seriously seventies and if someone had filed the air with joss stix, you'd have had to have pinched yourself to stop the unswerving belief that time travel wasn't only possible, but that it had just happened. Around third number in - and still the ambeince hasn't really changed - you found out what the gardn gomes were - they were bells! Of course - I should have known!!! With shoes off, the guy tinkled them on the top with his feet and this beautiful peal of percussive delicacy comes ringing out gently above the main body of instrumentation. Most fascinating.
They played for about 20 minutes or so then stopped. I thought it was the end of the set. But our violinist goddess - who plays superbly, I might add - remained at the mic. Meanwhile, our singer is now on his knees on the floor, joined by another guy opposite him, with two more cases. Out of these cases are produced what look like two xylophones. They must have been connected electronically to the PA as I didn't see any mics near them. As all of this is going on, somewhat bizarrely, the bassist and drummer are treating us to the rhythm section part of Deep Purple's "Black Night". Without warning, the violinist begins to drone as the subtlest of electronics sounds wafts through the air and the tinkling xylophones make their presence felt. Now, I've no idea how all this is done, but as the time wore on, the sound of the ambient instrumentation in all its glory is now building, becoming ever louder and slowly filling the place, even adding the solid bass and remarkably ambient drumming to the whole soundpool in a natural kind of way. The musicians seem totaly oblivious to the audience - the only problem being, the audience now seem to be totally oblivious to the musicians, as it became difficult to know, in volume terms, which was winning. But the sounds continued to swell and then, after hitting a peak, decreased somewhat quicker, and it was all gone - by now, I'm considering the possibility that I'm actualy in the twilight zone!
The vocalist returns to the mic and addresses the audience - "would you like some more electronics or another song", he asked (or something along those lines). "Another song" came the reply - hardly surprising, I guess - and so that's what we got - another slow, moody, brooding slice of spellbinding dark ambient folk - and that was that - gone! Bizarre and then some.
By now, it's twenty past eleven, the last lot - who I believe are called Esperi - have done about an hour - and it's time for The A Forest.
The A Forest consist of 2 guitarists, one doubling on electronic programming and tape manipulation (or something like that) a female cellist, drummer, bassist (or was that a second guitarist - I can't remember) and a female singer. The singer - with a similar mass of hair to the goddess violinist only more curly and auburn-y - wearing a delightfully psychedelic long skirt (yes, welcome to the fashion review!) and with a positively pixie-ish smile on her face - veritably springs up to the mic and makes an announcement. The band begin to play.
Now, you have to remember that there are 6 people playing this - well, 5 and the singer - but this band is not about power or force or even, to a degree, strength and dyanmics - this band is about atmosphere, ambience and an amazing passion of performance that is simply out of this world. Yet their sound is individual, all about structure and an almost organic process of composition, arranging and playing - and it's slow - exceedingly slow - and by that, we're talking pace. It's not a put-down - hell, you couldn't say a bad thing about this band if you tried - simply an observation. The vocalist has this fantastic pitch that is quite high register but so pure of tone, not an ounceof shrill in her body, with a voice that has nods to Liz Frazer in one direction and an almost Enya like quality in the other. The siren call of The A Forest trapping in her spell, all those that hear it. There's a guitarist who seems to be performing more of a textural role than anything, while the cellist weaves in and out of the soundpool with a depth that is haunting and a sea of melodic bliss that is enchanting. Slowly rhythmic, the whole thing is topped off with assorted effects and keyboards presence, the result being this absolutely remarkable and spellbinding music that is The A Forest in concert.
Yet it was all so terribly surreal - the majority of the audience seemed to know the band, who seemed to know the majority of the audience - and I felt more like I was at a mix of private party and wake as every passing minute rolled by. T make matters even more bizarre, a musician friend (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) wandered in looking distinctly the worse for wear for a night on the town, came upstairs, sat down on the bench and fell fast asleep!!! Needless to say - I left him there!!
Anyway - the time machine worked and the seventies rolled into view on an evening where I was thankful I didn't do drugs - you wouldn't have come down for a month if you'd seen all this and been high at the same time! As musical nights out go, this one has to be seen to be believed - makes me wanna take over Dexters and do it all again, just to see what happens.
Now you know what I meant by a concert....well, kind of...... May The A Forest be with you.