Aye’up all,
Just a couple of notes to make before I sojourn on with my monthly rambles…
First up, in a little-over-a-week’s time I shall be (dis)gracing the DJ booth at London’s The Black Cap on Friday 5th December for the third Audacity party, the newest gay indie music night to take root in the capital. For a taste of what to expect, here’s a mix of what I played the last time around at the premier shindig way back in July:
If you’re in town, please do well to poke your head in and party the night away with us. As well as myself there will also be tunes spun courtesy of Little Bastard and Silverhook, along with special guest DJ David OBryan, plus (PLUS!) a live set from electro-witch-hopper Baby Tap, of whom you can have a listen to his album Gem Pop right here:
It’s sure to be messy (hell, it wouldn’t be Camden otherwise!), but it’s also sure to be a shitload of fun, so please come along!
In other news, I also made it to see Goldfrapp‘s special one-off performance at the Royal Albert Hall earlier in the month, heralding the last moment of their Tales Of Us promo campaign alongside a twenty-piece orchestra and fifty-strong female choir. Those in attendance hoping for some of the resplendent glamour-stomp pop found in the livelier parts of the duo’s back catalogue were sure to be bemused as Alison and (latterly) Will dedicated the night to a full rendition of their aforementioned sixth studio set released last year, which found them at their most bucolic and swoonsome, re: pretty much absent of overt poppy electronic flourishes (and in passing, it does often bear a resemblance to Kate Bush‘s “A Sky Of Honey” suite from Aerial, but I’ve already written about that, so…) Consisting of biographical paeans to some of the duo’s closest friends (even taking said subjects’ own names as song titles), the mood evoked is striking in its galvanizing intimacy, creating an intensity that held the sold-out concert hall audience in rapt awe as Will’s arrangements swept through the expanse, sometimes fraught with menace, other times awash with incandescent sublimity (frequently both, to be honest). Alison herself cut quite the enigmatic figure throughout, coming in early on a few lines on some songs and frequently wondering offstage as if in a trance; whether this was down to her own nervousness or perhaps something else, who could say, but her voice still held true, as tremulously clairvoyant as it is on recording, matching Will’s arrangements ceaselessly in her ability to mix shades of salient light and foreboding dark within a single note.
Given her erratic behaviour in the first half as well as the thematic nature of these intense songs, it could very well have been that the material on Tales is perhaps still a little too harrowing for her to perform at times, for once the choir summoned in the second half for a rendition of previous album Head First‘s closing curio “Voicething“, Alison and her players began making their way through older material that noticeably put both herself and the audience much more at ease. Still taking its pastoral cues from Tales, the rest of the live set consisted primarily of tracks from debut album Felt Mountain and their almost-illegally-gorgeous Seventh Tree, a canny move as not only are these two LP’s arguably the most revered by fans but the arrangements found on these albums lend themselves better to the live set-up of orchestra, choir and band that Alison and Will were able to gather together at the Royal Albert. Highlights thereafter included Alison straddling two microphones to wail alongside the sinister trip-hop trappings of Mountain‘s “Lovely Head” and the choir chiming brightly away throughout Tree‘s “Caravan Girl“, by which point Alison had politely asked if the audience could stop being so formal and to “please stand up”. By the encore, Alison even had enough chutzpah to admonish a particularly blinkered heckler begging her to sing “Strict Machine” with a perfectly aloof retort of “I’ve forgotten how that goes…” She finished with “Black Cherry” instead, a perfect finale in its sublime blend of aching soul and electro-pop smarts that have stayed true with Alison and Will for fifteen years now, and it was fucking gorgeous.
Oh, and John Grant was there, and he was as darkly adorable as always…
So yeah, that was good, but enough chitter-chatter about past and future events, here’s what is “happening” with me right now:
Dibder’s 2014: November Mix
01) “Vista” by iamamiwhoami
02) “In Sintesi” by Róisín Murphy
03) “I Had This Thing” by Röyksopp featuring Jamie Irrepressible
04) “Held” by Kiasmos
05) “Violence” by Andy Stott featuring Alison Skidmore
06) “Kings Of The South” by Big K.R.I.T.
07) “Angel Duster” by Run The Jewels
08) “Love Stained” by TV On The Radio
09) “Radio Tokyo” by Hookworms
10) “Seguir” by Gustavo Santaolalla
And that’s it… Until next time, Merry Christm… fuck NO! NO!
Sorry xxxo
dibdersbooth 