New Upload to Mixcloud.com
I just uploaded "Divided love" to www.mixcloud.com, please listen now at: http://www.mixcloud.com/damnyoucurfew/divided-love/
via Mixcloud
21 December 2011
This is James' biggest ever headline show in London (he's about 30 tickets shy of selling out) and he admits to being a bit nervous. He needn't be - he's earned a supportive fan base who have stuck by him these last 10 years, as more fashionable bands have come and gone.
With Athletes' stalwarts Dougie and Ruben not making the journey down south, the emphasis tonight is on voices. It makes for a refreshing change, with songs like Queen of Spain turned into beautiful, parred-down vocal lullabies.
The two regular girls in the band, Emma and Sarah, who normally play violin and clarinet respectively, are given free reign to sing as well as play tonight and it's a bit of a revelation. Sarah in particular has the voice of an angel and when they sing together, with James and Johnny Pictish, it's approaching heavenly. All these years behind their instruments and it turns out they sing like angels - who knew?
James has never been afraid to experiment, and tonight we are treated to an intriguing re-interpretation of Tortoise Regrets Hare, courtesy of violin 'n laptop duo Geese (Emma plus her friend Vince), as well as a rare outing for Woozy with Cider, in which James, on his 40th birthday no less, knowingly laments how he's becoming invisible with age and is forever under-appreciated. Jon Hopkins tickles the ivories and it's as beautiful as anything he's done with King Creosote.
There's new material too - Black Horse and This Line Says - which suggests that the last couple of years have not exactly been a bed of roses. He appears to have emerged the other side, though, just about intact. A new album is scheduled for 2012, once the 10th year anniversary re-issue of the debut record, Moving Up Country, is out of the way.
Yorkston is also a natural story teller (as his recent foray into writing demonstrates), and he has a couple of great tales up his sleeve for us; one about pretending to be KT Tunstall on the train down from Edinburgh, the other about being offered a job to clean out a fountain by an old school pal who has mistaken him for a workshy lay-about.
Despite these fun, rambling anecdotes, overall the gig doesn't have the same boozy, high-spirited atmosphere of previous Christmas shows at the much-missed Luminaire. But nothing stays the same, you gotta move on, and James certainly has. Tonight's show may be a bit light on comforting old favourites but in their place are sober, honest and often moving songs made by and for a bunch of people growing older together (dis)gracefully.
Joe Downie
1 December 2011
Cultural differences huh - don't you just love them?
At the start of this show an over-excited woman near the back politely shouts something terrifically English along the lines of, "It's lovely to have you here, you're very welcome". Eleanor replies quickfire, in her finest New York accent: "What, is this your house or something?" We laugh, but it feels kind of awkward.
The set mixes tracks from contemplative debut album, Last Summer, with equally strong newer material, such as I Don't Want to Bother You and I'll Never Be Happy Again. Album tracks, including Roosevelt Island, Early Earthquake and Scenes from Benson Hurst, are all given welcome rockier interpretations and live, Eleanor's voice really sparkles.
Most transformed is final song One-Month Marathon, which is sped up from a melancholic, reflective slowie on the record to an empowering live anthem, complete with a couple of head-banging girls rocking out down the front. The song's mood is completely changed, from sad to something approaching celebratory.
Before that though, there's one more awkward moment; when someone in the crowd leaves an empty bottle on the stage Eleanor reasonably assumes it's a fan giving her a beer. The girl in the crowd apologetically bleats "sorry, it's just an empty" and Eleanor looks suitably non-plussed, as if to say, 'What kind of person leaves her empties on the stage?' By now though it doesn't matter - the too-cool-for-school hipster crowd is on-side and, whisper it, having fun.
The stand-out moment is an unplanned one. The lead guitarist breaks a string so, while he and the rest of the band fix it, Eleanor plays a new track she's still working on, There Are Other Boys Too. She can't quite remember all the lyrics but there's more than enough there to confirm that the pop genius of the Fiery Furnaces still burns strong.
At the end of the song she jokes, "I love doing that, it makes me feel so at ease", and she's won us over completely, as if there were ever any doubts.
Joe Downie
Make my day by Siren1 on Mixcloud
