In the Forest with Kathryn Joseph

Kathryn Joseph - Kings Place 19th September 2018

There is something elemental about Kathryn Joseph. Of smouldering fires in the forest, of the breeze whispering in the leaves, of the dark peaty earth, the coiling knots of moss covered tree roots, the trickle of a brook, of large eyed nocturnal beasts, of bloody fairy tales full of love, wisdom and vengeance. The live performance, with the set crafted by Cryptic magnified this. A fractured mirrored landscape, spot lights and twisted organics, where the performer could be seen reflected in tiny details across the stage, it felt like neither night or day, but something in between, that special transient moment of sunrise or sunset captured in perpetuity. There was gravitas and theatre to her performance, occasionally pausing to stand, take a drink and gaze beyond, into the captivated faces below her. Her dress, specially designed by Marketa Kratochvilova for the tour added to the timeless fairy tale quality.

The album, From When I Wake the Want Is, which she played solo in its entirety, is an astonishing feat, a brilliant follow up to her first album, the award winning Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled. The stripped down piano, the dark bass synths soaring, the heartbeat like percussion. And her fragile yet powerful vocals, sometimes allowed to bleed into the earth, into the background of the brilliant production (by Marcus Mackay), they come and go. It’s like she is moving around the fairy tale world she’s created, and we catch and hear glimpses of her as we carefully venture into the forest she commands. It's immersive, a story. Like Acteon when he stumbles upon the bathing Diana, the goddess of the hunt, it felt we were almost intruding on something so beautiful. Unlike Diana, she wasn’t vengeful and didn’t turn the audience into stags for us to be later consumed by our own dogs! (What a way to go though!)

Lyrically the album is both heart-breaking and uplifting. It feels dipped in love, blood, hope and sadness. It moves me. It’s inspiring. I’m listening to it for my writing. Kathryn Joseph is a treasure and a wonderfully kind, funny and generous friend to her fans. Go see her. Buy her albums!

“The way that your mouth covers my mouth
The way that you suck all the darkness out
The way that my mouth covers your mouth
The way that I swallow the darkness down”

Instagram post below

Otoboke Beaver, The Scala

The other night I went to watch the incendiary punk madness of Otoboke Beaver for the second time, the first time was at the legendary 100 Club last year, this time, at another iconic London venue, the Scala … and wow, what a show.

In a gig showcasing their record label’s (Damnably) wealth of talent, we saw three great bands. Leggy, a three piece from the states warmed things up with their fun garage rock, veering into dream pop and at times, towards a Joy Division industrial darkness.

Above: Leggy’s Véronique (all photos by the author)

Next up, the warm waves of Say Sue Me, Korea’s best kept secret. Their shoegazey surf pop was like being gunned down in a fuzzy hail of heart warming Brian Jonestown Massacre soft play bullets. (lots of adjectives there, sorry). Their Blondie cover of Dreaming was lush, a slowed down layered beautiful chunk of psychedelia. Their new album is out soon and I’m sure to buy it.

Sumi from Say Sue Me

Then the main event!

Kyoto’s Otoboke Beaver make their own musical rules.

Time signature changes, jagged riffs, screams and gargles with added theatre. Rage and fierce comedy in equal measure. They are brilliant. Yes, they’re punks, but there’s something unique about their sound which elevates them above their peers. The only album I can think of which sounds vaguely similar to their thunderous debut Okoshiyasu!!, is Daisy Chainsaw’s “Eleventeen”, which shares the principle of ripping up the rock rule book and then patching it back together with rainbows and amphetamines to create a Frankenstein’s monster of terrifying beauty.

You can tell the band enjoy playing, intense Pop on drums, a nugget of dynamite pummeling the kit. Hirochan on bass, unflappable, barefooted and serene, not a hair out of place, with chaos all around her. The kabuki like elegance of guitarist / main vocalist Accorinrin, sometimes gyrating in controlled bursts of rage, sometimes subtly face acting, her giant eyes fixing any mortal brave enough to meet her gaze and instantly turn them into ash (she describes herself with “I am cute violence” on her insta, which seems apt).

Hirochan and Accorinrin

Finally there’s the force of nature Yoyoyoshie on lead guitar. Like a flaming sprite, she can run small towns via the power generated through her shredding and energy on stage (and in audience, and fire surfing on top of the audience). She holds her guitar like a flame thrower and I can still hear her war cries of “WE ARE OTOBOKE BEAVAAAAAAAAAAA!” echoing in my mind 48 hours after the gig. I imagine she is always like that. A visit to the supermarket for instance, screaming out her shopping list contents as she ticks them off. “BROCOLLI! FABRIC CONDITIONER! CHEESE!” *checks to see if it’s mature cheddar*, pause, shouts “CHEESE!” again. *Screams and runs over other customers with her trolley whilst lolling her tongue out*

Yoyoyoshie about to breathe fire over the crowd

She is an amazingly versatile guitarist, and her teasing of the massive overly officious security guard was hilarious (they made up afterwards and had a photo together)

I think the future is bright for Otoboke Beaver, go see them, get incinerated by them, before they start playing stadiums!

When Yoshie and Hiro play fast enough they turn into laser beams.

All photos © Mel Melis

Valentine's with Out Lines

Last night, Debbie and myself had the privilege of seeing Out Lines live. I’ve seen Kathryn Joseph and her musical partner Marcus Mackay twice before, when we’ve been lucky enough to have them visit London from what I imagine is their hand chiselled ice palace somewhere in the Highlands. Coincidentally, I’ve seen James Graham twice too, as front man of the Twilight Sad, when they supported Mogwai in Brixton and The Cure in Lisbon. The latter was in the biggest indoor venue I’ve ever seen, when my little niece Katerina dragged me and my colleague SJ through the crowd almost right to the front.

I much prefer smaller venues though, it’s more intimate, you can get a closer connection to the band, and they are both very expressive performers, with Kathryn’s little feral side glances while playing the harmonium or keyboard, and James’ forays away from the mike to flail and gesture and clench his fists, like a fire and brimstone clergyman behind his lectern, warning us that the end days are nigh. They would make a great fighting duo and I’m sure they could kick the shit out of me if they so chose.

If the two of them are the outward manifestation of the band’s intensity, then the beating heart is Marcus, serenely going about his business behind them, his drumming driving the warm blood through the body of the band and his soaring analogue synth playing giving an unsettling but beautiful backdrop to the magnificence of Kathryn and James up front.

All of this was enhanced by the venue, I’d never been to The Islington before and it’s great, from the staff, the bar, to the venue room adjoining it. The walls were draped in what looked like red velvet curtains, the spotlights were predominately red, it was like we were guests in a womb or a ribcage of something alive, washed with red light, listening to the beating heart of our host and its blood surging through the body of the beast.

The performance was beautiful, chilling, heart wrenching and most of all brilliant. Between songs, the bond between the band members was joyous and sometimes hilariously bawdy, the rapport between them was obvious and it was a pleasure to join them on Valentine’s night.

Out Lines were brought together to listen to and then tell the stories of people who don’t always have a voice, via a Glasgow based community art project Platform. And the album, Conflats is a magnificent tribute to those people, covering loss, abuse, sorrow but all with a layer of hope. Our Beloved Dead sends a shiver down you with the chilling “I’ll take you down with me” repeated chorus dipped in barely contained rage and melancholy. And their ABBA cover of lay All your love on me is given a dark, devastatingly sad new lease of life.

We didn’t get to say hi to Kathryn this time as we had to dash for our train, but I’m looking forward to hers and Marcus’s new album! Who knows, might catch a gig in Scotland too. And The Twilight Sad’s new album is out too. All in all a lovely date night on Valentine’s. Thank you!

Shonen Knife, Bedford Rock City, May 2016

 

It’s amazing to think that Shonen Knife have been going since 1981, this was their 35^th year of touring and writing material, with fifteen studio albums of quirky punk pop behind them and a bonkers repertories of lyrically wonderful songs to perform, this was going to be great. For me, Bedford is my local town, so I didn’t have to go into London for a change. Bossman came up from Kent and we hit the venue Esquires.

The current line up saw the return of original member Atsuko on bass, joining her perma-guitarist sister Naoko with new member Risa on drums, who was the happiest person in Bedford it seemed! Atsuko revived her historical role of designing the band’s costumes, so the stage was silver sheen and sparkle!

Brill fan vid

Opening with the savage Konnichiwa! “Are you ready to rock? Yes!” with synchronised axes spraying the crowd with happy rock bullets and hair flying - they went straight into Twist Barbie

“Blue eyes, blond hair
Tight body, long legs
She's glamorous
She's welcomed by boys, ooh, aah aah”

Atsuko

They then embarked on a whirlwind set which squished in many of their classics and older songs including the cute love song Loop Di Loop, Riding on the Rocket, E.S.P and BBQ Party where the eclectic crowd went insane, their brilliant array of hairstyles, ages, musical tribes and social groups merging into a senseless seething mass of bludgeoning sweaty bodies and grins in the mosh pit. We stood on the fringes, enjoying the carnage!

“Riding on the rocket I wanna go to pluto
Space foods are marshmallows, asparagus, ice cream
Blue eyed kitty cat said, "please let me go with you"
Iko, iko everybody let's go”

Risa and Naoko

They also played songs from the new album, Adventure. As well as the punk influences, especially the Ramones, you can hear elements of British heavy rock, such as Sabbath and Motorhead, and little nods to Nirvana along the way (Kurt Cobain was a huge fan and they toured with them on the Nevermind tour). Stand out tracks with such as Rock and Roll T Shirt and Wasabi (Hot Hot Wasabi, why are you so hot?) were licked out and afterwards the band signed CDs and posters. The semi acoustic Green Tangerine was a very catchy break from the rock and punk.

“Green Tangerine, Fruit of sunshine, Tons of Vitamins, I me mine, I me mine”

The girls. And yes that man pretty much got mosh happy naked. 

I also got my rare 2000 yen note signed (show a 2000 yen note to any Japanese person and chances are they might never have seen one and they’ll deliver a cartoon style double take!).

Sometimes you don’t need earnest and well meaning, sometimes you just want to have fun and laugh. Shonen Knife delivered.

“We've always enjoyed writing songs about everyday things. Besides, there are already enough bands out there singing about pollution, war and poverty. While we all care very much about those things, we also feel that music should be fun” – well, yes.

Thank you Shonen Knife, from a very grateful Bedford Rock City.