‘The Japanese House’, with ‘Art School Girlfriend’ at The Gorilla, Manchester, 25-11-2018.

In origin, ‘The Japanese House’ is the name of the solo project of songwriter Amber Bain, but they play live as a four piece band, with Bain herself taking both the principle vocal and guitar spots. Her music has always been truly original – often gentle, swaying and ethereal, but by no means simple balladeering. Playing ‘spot the genre’ with her is futile. She has described herself as “harmony-based, guitar-y, alternative pop”, but so were ‘Beach Boys’. Elsewhere, she has been described variously as ‘Ambient’, ‘New Age’, ‘Electropop’, ‘Folktronica’ and ‘Dream pop’, but none of these really quite covers it and, in reality, she is unashamedly just ‘The Japanese House’ – a wonderful one band genre in her own right.

Electronic signal processing looms large, and this is not just restricted to the instruments. Bain’s vocals are also often heavily processed. She uses effects on her voice in exactly the same way that she does on her guitar, to broaden her sonic pallet. This seems to upset some people who regard it as somehow cheating. The same people would probably be perfectly happy with the use of synths, or guitar pedals, so why on Earth they would criticise the use of similar processing with the human voice seems inexplicable. But the results can be absolutely marvellous: with chorus, harmonies, dramatic pitch changes and other effects introduced as well as more traditional tweaks like reverb and delay. We have written about these techniques and her overall output in a previous more in-depth article, so there is little point in repeating ourselves here, but it was interesting on the night to watch her seamless melding of live performance with pre-recorded backing tracks, and the skilful way she combined both with additional layers that she built up there and then on stage with a looper pedal – for example on the song ‘Cool Blue‘.

Fig 2. The Japanese House.  Photo: The Hera Says Team.

The often delicate nature of her music makes it potentially very vulnerable live to the vagaries of venue sound systems and engineering. This has been something of a hobbyhorse of ours of late, but it has to be said that the Gorilla did her proud. Both ‘The Japanese House’ and their support act ‘Art School Girlfriend’, were well mixed and relatively undistorted, so the subtleties came through well. This was the last gig of a tour and as performers they were clearly tight and well rehearsed, so it was particularly gratifying that a good performance was able to shine so well. The band itself appears to play rather differently live, being both louder and more aggressive in feel than the recorded versions of the same songs. Purist fans may disapprove, but in fact the changes are not dramatic enough to detract from the beauty of the originals. They simply add a little more in the way of bite and robustness which makes the material a lot better suited to the live environment.

There were also a number other tweaks which gave an added excitement to the music for live consumption. For example, the song ‘Face Like Thunder‘, which is anyway one of Bain’s most commercial pieces to date, has recently acquired a rather nice guitar solo live, which does not appear on the record, but was repeated at the Gorilla gig. Bain has always been an innovative guitarist, but flourishes like this show that she is also technically better than she sometimes allows herself to appear in the more tranquil recorded versions of her songs. She also has an interesting playing style, in that she is left handed, but plays a right handed Stratocaster upside down, rather than using a purpose-built left handed model. This leaves the strings in reverse order and also leaves the strap lug below, rather than above the neck, which must effect the instrument’s center of gravity fairly dramatically. None of this seems to harm her technique, though, and she is a fascinating guitarist both to watch and to listen to.

Fig 3. The Japanese House. Photo: The Hera Says team.

To date, ‘The Japanese House’ have released four, four song EPs, which appeared between 2015 and 2017 – a total about an hour of music. She now has a full album in the pipeline, to be called ‘Good at Falling’, which fans had been expecting this year, but which is now slated for release on 1st March 2019. The Gorilla set drew on this entire legacy, something that was much appreciated by fans who have been with her since the beginning. We got ‘Still‘ from her initial EP, ‘Pools to Bathe In’.  There was the title track and ‘Cool Blue‘ from ‘Clean‘. They played the whole of 2016’s ‘Swim Against the Tide‘ EP and ‘Somebody You Found‘ from 2017’s ‘Saw You In a Dream’.  The title track of that EP was also played, but not in the form we are used to. Bain let slip that there will be an acoustic version of it on the album and she played that instead, although actually on her Stratocaster, rather than an acoustic guitar. It was played solo nevertheless, which changed the whole feel of the song. In addition, she previewed four more tracks from the album. “You Seemed So Happy’, ‘Maybe You’re The Reason’, ‘Follow my Girl‘ and ‘Lilo‘.

The first two were entirely new to all of us, and not even live versions have yet managed to reach the likes of ‘YouTube’. The other two have appeared as singles, however, and the latter comes with one of the most poignant music videos ever made. Bain makes no secret of the fact that she is gay (it is perhaps worth speculating why so many of the most innovative female guitarists of the moment are), and until recently she was in a long term relationship with fellow songwriter Marika Hackman. The song is essentially a break up record, but the former couple remain on such good terms that Bain was able to persuade Hackman to film a video about their relationship to go with the song. The result is intimate and heartrendingly beautiful. It also has a few nice little witty touches, such as a bath scene which seems to refer back to one of Hackman’s own videos: 2013’s ‘Bath is Black‘. The song has clearly become well loved by fans. Its introduction got the biggest cheer of the night and although it is a fairly new release, a large part of the audience knew its lyrics well enough to sing along. Interestingly, the new material had even more of a rock feel on the night, which might suggest that the album itself will depart from her previous serene voice and follow suite. But, in fairness, the recorded versions of the two singles are as lyrical as always, so we will just have to wait until March to find out.

Fig 4. Art School Girlfriend. Photo: Hera Says team.

We have said it before on ‘Hera Says’, but it has long been a mystery to us why people pay good money to see a gig and then deliberately miss much of it because they could not be bothered with the support acts. Well, fair enough. It is their money and if that is what they want, then who can argue. We would, though, say that we find the support slots to be a wonderful introduction to an apparently never ending stream of astonishing new talent. For example, one of our current absolute favourites is Manchester band ‘URF‘ who are quite astonishingly good and who we first saw playing to a virtually empty room supporting ‘Estrons’, before the latter’s audience had turned up.

‘The Japanese House’ introduced us to another wonderful talent: ‘Art School Girlfriend’, aka ex ‘Deaf Club’ member Polly Mackey. On the night she was playing as a solo artist, although she also appears with a full band on occasions. This was an inspired pairing and she was a perfect match for ‘The Japanese House’, being another exponent of gentle and lyrical electronic influenced music.  She herself describes her material as ‘slow and electronic with overtones of longing and undertones of gay.’ which is at least as accurate a description as any we could manage. She did, though, miss out one crucial word: ‘beautiful’. Her music really is exquisitely beautiful. Mackey has a distinctively yearning, but pure toned, voice and when playing solo, she sings to a mix of effects, drum machine patterns and her own guitar. She plays a Strat, like Bain, and sometimes has an almost Hank Marvin like reverb rich sound. She also plays bass on other tracks. It is a pity that neither act appeared on the merch stall afterwards, because we would have loved to talk to her, but she has two EPs available: 2017’s ‘Measures‘ and the newly released ‘Into the Blue Hour‘. We can heartily recommend, both and the former is even available on vinyl.

Fig 5. Art School Girlfriend. Photo: Hera Says team.

Finally, it is always worth taking a look at the audience at a gig. Indie music can all too often these days be the preserve of a largely middle aged, white, male crowd, who are increasingly older, often markedly so, than the bands they go to see. It is worth saying, though, that a ‘Japanese House’ audience is very different. The average age was dramatically lower than is often the case. There was a slight but definite female majority and a broader racial spread, especially amongst the women. As one might expect for two LGBTQ acts, there was a substantial number of same sex, again largely female, couples. Above all, though, there were a lot of people who looked to be of Japanese (or its environs) origin. The Japanese House name actually derives from a holiday home in Devon where Bain once stayed as a child, rather than from anything actually Japanese, but she has clearly won over devoted far eastern fans. In short, this was a lovely evening with two great acts playing at the top of their game.

Hera Says.

‘Hera Says’ also has a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/hera.saysso.3

Fig 6. The forthcoming ‘Japanese House’ album ‘Good at Falling’ and the new ‘Art School Girlfriend’ EP, ‘Into the Blue Hour’.

‘Dream Wife’, with ‘Dollie Demi’ and ‘Queen Zee’ at the Gorilla, Manchester: 28-10-2018.

Contrary to myth, guitar music is most definitely not dead.  It’s not even feeling poorly. Many older Rock fans bemoan the decline of the so called ‘guitar hero’ and tell us that no one is producing good new Rock any more.  But rumours of the death of Rock are, as always, premature.  As Hera has pointed out in the past, if you can bring yourself to stop assuming that for something to be good it must also be male then what we have actually seen is a transition not a decline.  In other words, we have seen a shift from a generation of remarkable male guitarists to one of equally remarkable guitar heroines.  If we were to list the most innovative guitarists around at the moment, we would have to include the likes of Marissa Paternoster (Screaming Females), Annie Clark (St. Vincent) or Courtney Barnett (especially when she plays in her wife, Jen Cloher’s band).

Fig 2. Alice Go, of Dream Wife. Photo: Hera Says team.

We would mention the dystopian freestyle playing of Gemma Thompson (Savages), the gentle dreamscapes of Amber Bain (The Japanese House) or the fluid riffing of Holly Carter (Berries).  These are six superb musicians – all female, and there are others we could also name, others such as Tash Sultana (non binary), Whitney Petty (Thunderpussy), or Gabby Logan (Txlips).  They are not, in those patronising words that are still heard all too often, “Pretty good for a woman”.  They are just good – period – end of story.  More than good, in fact.  They are brilliant – as good as you get – and Dream Wife’s Alice Go is another one to add to the list.  Like Barnett and Bain, she is a left hander and it would be interesting to speculate whether or not it is a coincidence that so many of the best guitarists of the moment are.

Fig 3. Dream Wife’s Rakel Mjöll Leifsdottir.   Photo: Hera Says team.

Go has an extremely distinctive and instantly recognisable playing style, which is hugely influential on Dream Wife’s overall sound as a band.  She does not bother much with the grandiose, self indulgent guitar solos of the male dominated generation.  Instead she is an ensemble player, with spiky, discordant and constantly shifting riffs and power chords which on record often take an equal place in the mix with the vocals – for example in songs like ‘Fire‘.  Melodic she isn’t.  Relentless is more like it and her slightly unusual choice of guitar perfectly suits her jarring style. Because she plays the Burns ‘Marquee’, a physically attractive British, single coil pickup design which was specifically engineered in the 1960s to give a hard edged, treble heavy tone.  It has been described as more Jag than a Fender Jaguar.  Certainly it could have been created with Go in mind, and she tends to play right up against the bridge for even more bite.

It is unfair, of course, to single out one member of a band.  I happen to play bass and usually for gigs I check on YouTube to see which side of the stage a band’s bassist tends to occupy and take up station there to watch their fingers from as close up as possible. Dream Wife’s bass player Bella Podpadec is damn good.  She has also recently taken to playing a Fender Mustang bass, like me, and it is always great to watch someone really play on your own instrument.  Likewise, the third member of the core, three piece band (they also have a male drummer, Alex Paveley), Rakel Mjöll Leifsdottir, is a great singer and front-woman but I’m sorry, I love guitar and I wanted to sit at Go’s feet and be blown away.

Fig 4. Dream Wife’s Rakel and Bella. Photo: Hera Says team.

I was not disappointed.  We have been fans of the band for a long time on record and video.  We were hugely impressed by their self titled debut album earlier this year, and have written about them before.  But thanks to a number of date conflicts and a very badly timed bout of surgery last year, this was the first time I had managed to see them live.  But oh I do hope it won’t be the last, because they are a great live act.  Rakel is an exhilarating performer who fronts the band brilliantly.  She banters with the audience well between songs and can hold a crowd in the palm of her hand.  Like all of the acts on the night, she was let down by the sound engineering, which, as so often, allowed the drums and guitars to all but drown out her voice.  But she coped well – managing to get herself heard without resorting to shouting and running her voice ragged.  It is a pity, though, that this is such a common problem.

As for their set, they played all eleven songs from their album, including the big favourites, such as ‘Fire‘, and the glorious feminist anthem ‘Somebody‘, with its refrain of ‘I am not my body, I am somebody’.  They also included an older song, ‘Lolita‘.

Fig 5. Dream Wife’s Rakel. Photo: Hera Says team.

Dream Wife are known as a proudly feminist and LGBTQ friendly band.  They have also taken an admirable stance in trying to ensure that their gigs will be safe places for women.  One of their nice touches is their call for “Bad Bitches” in which they call the women in the audience to the front to give them a chance of a decent view.  One of the irritants for a woman, or even a short man, at a gig is that you can almost guarantee that some 6 foot Herbert is going to decide that he urgently needs to stand right in front of you and block your view, so the move gives everyone a chance. Another welcome touch was getting both support bands back on stage (top picture) to join in with the final song of their encore – the riotous ‘Let’s Make Out‘, which is about exactly what you think it is.  It was a great set by a great band right at the top of their game.  It was also nice to get the chance to talk to them properly on the merch stall afterwards.  ‘Goat Girl’ a couple of days before at the same venue did not appear at all on their stall, but I got to talk to Podpadec about basses and Go about her playing style and went away very happy.

Fig 6. Dollie Demi.   Photo: Hera Says team.

The support slots began with ‘Dollie Demi‘ from Manchester. They are another four piece of three women plus a male drummer. They call their genre ‘Sassy Pop’, which seems like a pretty good description, and they too take guitar very seriously, thanks to Ella Risi, who is another wonderful player.  Somehow their front woman, the eponymous Demi, managed to be less short changed by the sound engineering of her vocals, and the band’s Facebook page has a brief video clip of their performance that night in which she comes through loud and clear as the singer she undoubtedly is.

One of the joys of getting to gigs early enough to see all of the bill, rather than just the headliners, is the discoveries you make of acts you had not come across before.  We have never understood why anyone would miss this opportunity, especially as it is also the best way of getting a good spot by the stage – but each to their own.  We are certainly glad we saw this band and we would like to see them again playing a longer set.

Fig 7. ‘Queen Zee’. Photo: Hera Says team.

Dream Wife’s Rakel declared during their set that ‘Gender is only a social construct’. The second support act ‘Queen Zee‘, pretty much proved that.  ‘Hera Says’ specialises in female acts, or acts where one or more women play a significant artistic role.  We are happy to support the ‘T’ end of the LGBTQ spectrum and to us a woman is anyone who identifies as such.  There are women in this band alright.  Quite how many is not entirely clear and I suspect that the band themselves would question its relevance. They may well be right.  Ash Summers on keyboards and vocal is a fair bet but ….. Look, they’re loud, brash, bloody brilliant and huge fun, so just go and see them.  You won’t regret it.

Hera Says.

‘Hera Says’ also has a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/hera.saysso.3

Fig 08 The ‘Dream Wife’ Album cover.

‘Goat Girl’ with ‘Black Country New Road’ and ‘Sneaks’ at the ‘Gorilla’, Manchester 23-10-2018: 23-10-2018.

One of the most original bands to emerge over the last few years is London all female four piece ‘Goat Girl’. They have been releasing material since their ‘Scum’ / ‘Country Sleaze’ single in 2016, but their self titled debut album, which appeared earlier this year put them in a different league. By tradition an album is a simple parade of songs, which follow one after the other, usually with a few seconds silence between each one. ‘Goat Girl’ is more of a suite, however. There are songs in the conventional sense to be sure. Some are even quite commercial in form, notably single release, ‘The Man‘, and the gloriously eccentric ‘Viper Fish‘, which has since been blessed with an equally quirky animated video. There are ballads like the haunting ‘Throw me a Bone‘ or ‘Slowly Reclines‘. Others, however, although recognisably still songs, are less conventionally rock songs, for example ‘The Man with no heart or brain‘ – whilst others are as much statements as songs, notably ‘Creep‘ – an angry piece about being harassed as a woman on public transport. Meanwhile, all of these pieces are embedded in a mixture of short musical and spoken interludes to form a uniform whole, rather than a simple list of separate individual tracks.

Live in Manchester, the band played as a six piece, with the four band members being supplemented by a male keyboard player and a female violinist. The latter was not identified on the night, but she played the beautiful violin part from ‘Creep’ which on the album, is played by Tina Longford. She also added violin lines to other songs and had a wonderfully fluid style, reminiscent of Graham Smith of the superb, but much neglected, 1970s Prog Rock band ‘String Driven Thing‘.

Fig 2. Goat Girl. Photo: Hera Says Team.

‘Goat Girl’ are not great ones for banter with the audience, but they put on a wonderful set, which included many of the songs from the album, plus debut single ‘Scum‘, with at least one cover version thrown in for good measure. One of the most striking features of the band has been the fact that however strange their music can sometimes become, it sits on a foundation of superb musicianship and this was as apparent live as on record. The two guitarists: Ellie Rose Davies (who uses the stage name L.E.D.) and singer Lottie Pendlebury (Clottie Cream) are perhaps the most obviously strong in this respect, but ‘Goat Girl’ have an interesting tendency towards giving songs solo bass introductions and as your reviewer also plays bass I had made a point of arriving early enough to get a spot leaning on the right hand side of the stage, where bassist Naima Bock (a.k.a. Naima Jelly) usually takes up station, so that I could watch her fingers. To many, the words innovative and bassist do not readily go together (although I have no idea why – just watch ‘Kite Base‘ and say that), but she really is and she has a lovely warm sound. Witness, for example, the into to ‘Throw me a Bone‘ where she manages to make a Squier Precision bass sound like an acoustic double bass, rather in the style of the intro to ‘Pentangle’s ‘Light Flight’.

Fig 3. Goat Girl. Photo: The Hera Says team.

In her role as singer Pendlebury excelled. She has a most distinctive voice, often quite low in pitch for a woman, but with a considerable range. Sadly, as so often, the vocals were mixed too low for all three acts at the ‘Gorilla’, with ‘Goat Girl’ as the headliners faring little better than the support acts, but Pendlebury refused to fall into the usual trap of trying to compensate for the poor sound engineering by shouting. She sung as she would have done if she was being mixed properly. As a result, she preserved all of the subtlety of her vocal parts, they just came out rather quietly, but that was hardly her fault. In fact, we applaud the line she took and more singers should follow her lead. Their performances would be better. They would be less likely to damage their voices, and it might even force sound engineers to get their act together rather more. It’s hardly rocket science after all. Perhaps whoever did such a superb job on the mixing desk for Aurora’s gig at the ‘Academy’ on October 10th should give lessons.

Fig 4. Sneaks. Photo: The Hera Says team.

Goat Girl had two support acts, one of whom was part of the tour: ‘Sneaks‘, from Washington DC, which is the project of solo artist Eva Moolchan. We had not come across her before, and she perhaps suffered more than most from the poor engineering of vocals on the night. But she was a real revelation that had us wanting more. Her music consists largely of funk influenced ballads with hypnotic rhythms, and sung in a beautifully gentle voice, somewhat reminiscent of early Suzanne Vega. She sings alone on stage, although she employs a chorus effect to multiply her voice. For about half of her songs she plays bass, interestingly with quite an aggressive twangy style that contrasts markedly with her voice. But otherwise, her only accompaniments are backing tracks and drum machine patterns played off a laptop computer. The results really are stunning. She had her current record, ‘It’s a Myth‘, on sale on the merch stall and we have been very glad we bought it.  Whether, you would call it an album or an EP is something of a moot point, because it is somewhere in between. At a little over 18 minutes it has the length of a generous EP, but it has 10 tracks. She simply does not go in for long pieces. We can heartily recommend it, and she has a new album ‘Highway Hypnosis‘ out in January 2019, which will be available on CD, Vinyl or as a download.

Fig 5. Black Country New Road. Photo: Hera Says team.

The opening act was ‘Black Country New Road’ (a.k.a. BCNR), who were both wonderful and maddening. Their music was absolutely wonderful. It is heavily sax driven and has something of the Jazz Rock feel of Daevid Allen period ‘Gong’, but heavier, and with added violin. Their music is largely instrumental, occasionally with something of an element of Near Eastern crossover – and what lyrics there are were often spoken rather than sung. On the night, they were a six piece, with male guitarist, drummer and sax, and female bassist, violin and keyboards. The frustrating bit is that this is currently about all we can tell you about them. They don’t talk to the audience. They did not appear on the merch stall afterwards. They do have a Facebook page, but it says virtually nothing, least of all who the band members are, and to add yet more confusion, there seems to be another band with the same name. So, all we can really say is that they are wonderful, and I mean seriously wonderful, but who they are or whether they have any records out, I have no idea. The latter, in particular, is a shame, because if we knew of any records, we would already have bought them.

This was a great evening with three great acts. It is a shame that ‘Goat Girl’ did not come out to talk on their merch stall, as ‘Dream Wife’ did three days later at the same venue, and it is a shame that ‘BCNR’ are such a secret, but it was still very much a night to remember. We already have ‘Sneaks’ new album on pre-order and we will look forward to seeing what ‘Goat Girl’ do next, because whatever it is, it is bound to be memorable.

Hera Says.

‘Hera Says’ also has a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/hera.saysso.3

Fig 6.  The ‘Sneak’s’ ‘It’s a myth’ and ‘Goat Girl’ self titled album covers.

Sunflower Bean and Sorry at the Gorilla, Manchester, Friday 30-3-2018.

Over the last two years, Sunflower Bean have risen to international fame, a trend that has only accelerated with the release this March of their second album, ‘Twenty Two in Blue’ and the singles ‘I was a Fool’ and ‘Twenty Two’ that preceded it.  As a result, the chance to see them up close, playing in a relatively small venue like ‘The Gorilla’, is becoming something of an anachronism, to be treasured and grasped with both hands before it slips away forever.

This was the first time I had seen the band live and I was not altogether sure what to expect.  On record, their music might be called rock with finesse: full of subtleties of vocal and guitar tone which must be difficult to reproduce on stage, especially, again, in small venues, which may not be blessed with the highest quality sound systems.  Under such conditions, even the best singers can start to sound shouty and off-key, as they struggle to be heard above drums and electric instruments, often with far from perfect monitor provision to allow them to hear themselves.  Singer/bass player Julia Cumming, in particular, has a tremendous range of vocal timbres, from a sugar sweet, little girl sound, to full out rocking and it is exactly such singers that poor sound engineering can sabotage most.  In the event, however, there was no need to worry.  To be sure, she was pushing herself harder than on record, but for the most part, the result was just a louder version of the same voice.  The only exception was ‘Twenty Two’, one of her softest sung vocals on the album.  Yet, although on stage she was audibly more husky here, it actually suited the live environment better than a slavish version of the record would have done.  In short, she sounded wonderful, as did guitarist and fellow vocalist Nick Kivlen.

If not handled tactfully, amplified percussion can easily overwhelm everything else, and drummer Jacob Faber was perhaps mixed a little too high, and with a little too much treble on the EQ.  Nevertheless, I have heard a very great deal worse and it was not just the vocals that came through with their subtlety intact.  Faber’s playing, of course, being excellent.  Kivlen and Cumming are a superb guitarist and bassist.  As a bass player myself I was keen to watch Cumming’s finger work to see how she does some of her more complex lines (especially that for ‘I was a fool’) and the full richness of her playing was clear, even though on stage she obviously does have to play the bass and sing at the same time, rather than laying down the two parts separately, as one can in the studio.  In many ways, however, it was Kivlen’s guitar that was the revelation.  He has a most distinctive, light as air, playing style, somewhat reminiscent of Mark Gane of ‘Martha and the Muffins’ (later ‘M+M’) fame, but still very much his own.  He picks around chords, with the notes in rapid-fire succession – often in such a way that different strings produce the same note, but each with their slightly different tone.  His particular signature is near constant use of the delay pedal, but on record, he also uses multi-tracking a good deal, both to fill out the sound and to allow him to play more than one part at once.  Clearly that option is not available on stage and, although bands can and do use backing tracks to add in additional parts, this has to be done with sensitivity, otherwise it can look ridiculous or even fraudulent.

Fig.1 SunflowerBean (photo Hollie Fernando)

Likewise, musicians can use looper pedals to build multiple parts there and then in front of the audience.  This technique is best suited to repetitive, slow-building dreamlike music, however, which is not something that Sunflower Bean could be readily accused of.  Instead, they have an altogether different solution:  they simplify;  go up a gear and put on a show, especially Cumming and Kivlen at the front:  rocking on stage with real gusto.  They know how to work a crowd, with Cumming doing most of the chatter between songs:  bantering with the audience, and obviously very much at her ease, even when security had to catch and remove a particularly determined serial stage diver.  She organised various bits of audience participation, especially for the song ‘Crisis Fest’, and managed to dance with – as well as playing – her massive Rickenbacker bass, as if it was merely a rather elegant accessory to her jet black dress (Kivlen, by contrast, was in pure white), making her a joy to watch as well as to listen to.  This is a trick she does well on video, notably in that for ‘I was a Fool‘, but let’s face it, you can mime on a video.  To do it on stage whilst actually playing, and still not miss a note, is a very different prospect and one she pulled off flawlessly.

The new album had only been out a week at the time of the gig, so many fans were not yet thoroughly familiar with it.  Nevertheless, it very much got pride of place – getting nine out of a generous set of 11 songs, plus two encores.  The result was that only two of the ‘Twenty Two in Blue’ tracks (‘Oh no, bye bye’ and ‘Anyway you like’) were omitted.  But this still left room for four old favourites from their debut album ‘Human Ceremony’, and it was noticeable that these, along with the album trailer singles, tended to be greeted with particular enthusiasm by the audience.  In all, it was a wonderful performance by a band at the height of their powers and with an obvious passion for what they do.

Sunflower Bean have a reputation for picking really good support bands, unlike some who, perhaps, want to bring on new talent rather less than they fear being shown up.  Backing a band of the quality of ‘Sunflower Bean’ without looking almost comically outclassed cannot be an easy prospect, but London group ‘Sorry’ were well chosen and held their own well.  I had not come across them before, but was very glad I arrived early enough to catch their full set, because they are an impressive foursome, led by singer/guitarists Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen, with bassist Campbell Baum and drummer Lincoln Barrett.  Their music is both fascinating and hard to describe.  You could call it ‘Indie’, but that is really just a catch-all that says very little.  It is certainly quirky, often dreamlike and sometimes distinctly dystopian.  It can be Gothic, although not actually Goth, and on occasions, it can just rock.  Some songs are reminiscent of early ‘Gong’, but others are pure, unadulterated ‘Sorry’.  In other words, this is a band who are unashamedly themselves and none other.

Sorry

Lorenz does the majority of the lead vocal work, and she has a great voice, with a tremendous dynamic range that runs from soft and yearning to out and out belting.  It was obvious that the PA had been set up very much to suit the headliners, but she coped well in less than ideal circumstances and was still able to shine.  O’Bryen mostly sings backing vocals but he does take some leads, with a rich, slightly husky voice.  As guitarists, the two do not seem to take separate lead and rhythm roles.  Instead, but they are a little like ‘Warpaint’ in having dual guitarists who play on fairly equal terms.  That said, Lorenz in particular plays some wonderfully distorted, and occasionally sinister parts.

Sorry data stick, photo: David Woolliscroft

As yet, ‘Sorry’ do not have an album, although they were selling a number of vinyl singles (in person) from the ‘merch’ stall afterwards.  Instead, they had a fascinating 20 minute, DIY collection of material entitled ‘Home Demo/ns Vol II’, recorded this year and available on either cassette or USB data sticks.  The latter was a new one on me, but as Lorenz was keen to point out to me when I bought mine “If you don’t like the music, just delete it and you have a free data stick”.  It is a good idea, although as I love the music, I certainly won’t be deleting mine.  The live versions of the songs were a good deal more rocking than the rather stark recordings, but again that is often something forced on a band by the stage environment, and it is actually a bonus to hear the material in both guises.  The tape just has the audio, but the data stick contains two different files:  a sound only Wav version, plus a full-length video collection of the same songs.  If I was to be churlish, I might say that individual mp3 files with the track names (possibly with a text lyric file) would be nice, but at £5 for a mini album, with a free data stick thrown in, there clearly have to be limits. The videos are as quirky as the music itself, opening, for example, with Lorenz and O’Bryen (mercifully minus guitars) performing their song ‘Moment’ in the shower.  Incidentally, the video version of ‘Home Demo/ns Vol II’ is available gratis on YouTube and there is also a ‘Home Demo/ns Vol I’ available, from 2017, which is 12 minutes longer.  The latter, however, shows the band still very much developing their style.  That is not to say it is poor.  In fact, it has some impressive moments, such as ‘Drag King’, which gives Lorenz some gloriously eccentric lyrics, for example:  “I wish I was a boy, so I could dress up in drag”.  Even so, the band had made so much progress by the time of Vol II, just a year later, that it really is dramatically better and more coherent, and is clearly the work of musicians who had matured in the interim and gained a much firmer grasp of what they were about.  They are a band to watch, and in many ways are better live than on record, so thank you to Sunflower Bean for showcasing them.  They will not be to everyone’s taste;  they are much too idiosyncratic for that, but I certainly hope to see them again soon.

In all, this was a great gig and with a wonderfully varied audience, whose ages ranged from teens to well into the seventies.  It is a shame in a way that the next time Sunflower Bean tour here they will probably play much larger venues that lack the intimacy of spaces like ‘The Gorilla’.  At the same time, though, I would be the first to admit that this is the result of the success that they very richly deserve.

Hera Says.

‘Hera Says’ also has a Facebook page at:   https://www.facebook.com/hera.saysso.3