Third time seeing Syd Arthur in Manchester for me last night, but after a blinding gig at the Band on the Wall a few years back, followed by a less memorable low key gig at the Night and Day a few months later, it’s clear that things have changed. Back then, they were trying out new tunes to be heard next on the “Sound Mirror” album, now they are promoting ‘Apricity’, 8 months or so after its release.
A few obvious differences first – Josh Magill is now the drummer, replacing Fred Rother, apparently now out of music completely due to tinnitus, and last heard of carving out a living cultivating mushrooms. A shame, as Fred brought a texture and sensitivity to the sound fully in line with those early folk and jazz-flecked albums. Josh joins his brothers Joel and Liam in the band, alongside the multi-talented Raven Bush.
The second obvious difference is that Raven appears to have downed his violin completely, alternating between a heavily treated electric mandolin and a bank of keyboards. At times, marvellously wild-haired as he is and cranking up various effects on his soundboard, he generates a convincing mad scientist vibe. The story appears to be that he was struggling for a decent sound with his violin in some of the stadium gigs Syd Arthur did in the States, particularly whilst supporting Yes. Us lesser mortals who scratch, scrape or blow our way unconvincingly for years on end on one instrument can barely comprehend a virtuoso abandoning an instrument he was so proficient in, but Raven softens the blow a little by being a highly convincing pianist.
The third difference, no doubt influenced by the first two, is a new ‘sound’. It’s more straight ahead, more overtly poppy, more electronic and one would hope, for the band’s sake at least, capable of widening their audience. That said, the Deaf Institute was far from sold out, even though this was a double header with stablemates Morgan Delt.
The band’s strengths are not just an ever expanding repertoire of short sweet tunes with a twist, but their incredible tightness as a unit, honed without doubt by repeated tours in the States, and strengthened by those familial links. Liam Magill, stick-insect-thin and stooped over his microphone is very much the focal point, despite the obvious talents of the rest of the band – as a presence he puts me most in mind of Richard Sinclair. This is less for the pitch of his voice (he can switch into a falsetto at the drop of a hat) but just as a naturally gifted, understated musician who should have the world at his feet. This was a truncated set, clocking in at around an hour and mainly featuring tracks from ‘Apricity’ and whilst this album is very much their most straight-ahead album in terms of composition, there’s still an overall hint of deviance, almost menace in their live set, particularly some of the token olden numbers – witness the noodling, tempting intro to ‘Hometown Blues’, or the sonic assault of the wigged out ‘Singularity’ as it breaks out from the anthemic ‘Chariots’ – a very fine set-ender. Good to hear also that tracks like ‘Seraphim’ and the single ‘SunRays’ have a bit more impact live than on the album. Highlights for me apart from the above was the classic new pop tune ‘No Peace’ and the encore ‘Apricity’. I’m still hoping that at some point Syd Arthur will return, or at least give more reference points to, their folky roots, but their songwriting talents are so apparent they could still plough whatever furrow they wish and still have me wanting more. Roll on the new material the band mentioned during a brief chat afterwards, and here’s hoping for a few last minute festival bookings over the summer…
Really sad news about the passing of Allan Holdsworth a couple of weeks back. Latterly an emigre in the US, he nevertheless retained an accent of sorts of the type heard around these parts in West Yorkshire. I saw him several times in the 90s, always as the bandleader he became from the 1980s onwards.
-year old took it upon herself to point out every ‘Camembert Electrique’ T-shirt she saw, and she had her work cut out – there was a tug on my sleeve every few minutes. Apart from one incident in a tent on the last night, this was a safe, gentle, non-ravey event with a freefest vibe – full of Gong afficionados.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that in the last 5 years, I’ve spent more time listening to Syd Arthur than any other artist. The initial link might have been a geographical one to Canterbury, plus the fact that their music in the past has doffed its cap to the likes of Caravan et al, but they have been such a tight, innovative, folky/jazzy entity in their own right that they quickly generated a identity in their own which made any pigeonholed comparisons irrelevant.
In one of those bizarre coincidences, Gong and Van der Graaf Generator released new studio albums in the same week in September, in both cases 45 years on from their breakthrough albums ‘Camembert Electrique’ and ‘Pawn Hearts’. But whilst VdGG soldier on (magnificently) with a stripped down version of their seminal four-piece line-up, Gong, on the other hand, find themselves breaking out afresh with a set of musicians all of relatively recent vintage. The late Daevid Allen always flirted with concepts of re-incarnation and invisibility (witness their live album ‘Gong est Mort, Vive Gong’ when things fell apart in the late 70s, closely followed by ‘Daevid Allen N’Existe Pas) as well as a collective umbrella approach to band identity and so it’s maybe not entirely a surprise that not only is the first post-Daevid album called ‘Rejoice I’m Dead’, but it emerges that as his health declined, he effectively passed the baton of bandleader on to Kavus Torabi, Cardiacs and Knifeworld frontman, who appears to have enough vitality and panache to carry it off.
The Canterbury scene(zine) continued.... 