DANCE
Red Snapper
Glasgow: King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Sat 26 Sep; Edinburgh: La Belle Angele, Sun 27 Sep.
The last few years have seen dance music in a live setting really come of age. You’d have to be brassnecked, or The Chemical Brothers, to get away with 'doing an Orb’ these days — stationing two blokes behind a keyboard with an eye-popping lightshow and a drugged-up audience to fall back on. Things began to change with the likes of Underworld's ’Mad' — Karl Hyde providing more of a visual focus. Now it‘s the Bentley Rhythm Aces and Reprazents who have become the country’s best live acts. London-based Red Snapper have also built their reputation on their live shows but even their intense, sweaty, jazz-inflected jams underwent a rethink when they went on tour with the masters of the live dance arena, The Prodigy. 'That tour made us realise that we know nothing,’ says Ali Friend, Red
Snapper’s double-bass player. 'We subsequently shifted our stage show up a gear to make it more outward- looking. You need to be more aware of what's going on with an audience and play to them, reel them in a bit.’ Red Snapper's distinctive cocktail of sound is a natural attention-grabber and comes from the unlikely combination of the band’s nucleus — David Ayers, an American jazz, classical and soundtrack fiend, house and techno-loving drummer Richard Thair and Friend with his funk and jazz background - who all met a few years ago as session musicians for earnest singer/songwriter
Heather Nova.
'There was no pressure to do anything particular,’ says Friend of their early days, 'so we all played what we wanted to play and it was just a simple premise: get a bass and drum groove and let David improvise over the top. We had two sessions and thought, “there's
ROCK Rialto
Glasgow: King Tut’s, Wed 7 Oct; Edinburgh: Venue, Fri 9 Oct. He's not as posh as you'd think, you know LoUis Jones, tor; foo-fringe-tlop- SWOOn-por) crooner, dapper architect of Widescreen dramatists Rialto is speaking in the generic; tones of yer average Camden pop-strurririet languid and unplaceable, his nose unclogged by toffee, hrs mouth unencumbered by plums
LOUIS, y'see, is son of a real-life, three- dimensional, tweak-my-moustache-
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Rialto: giggling (almost) through the tear-jerkers
something here".‘
The result sounds like melodic drum ’n’ bass without the hectic breakbeats, probably because of the underlying jazz influence. You know the addictive twang of double-bass on Roni Size's ’Brown Paper Bag’? You get that over an entire album with Red Snapper. Making Bones, their second album, also boasts soundtrack strings and wide open spaces, jazz trumpet and intimate encounters. It’s not screamingly immediate, but worth taking some time over.
Friend is also thinking about where Red Snapper take
Red Snapper: making no bones about it
things next. There's talk of more electro, more vocals
and electric bass.
(Fiona Shepherd)
and-chew-riiy-travel House of lords peer and, t'xlieri Jones Set passes his final motion, w-ll techni aily tale his place in Pater's rio'xerruiientai iv groove, srioozirvi ciracetutly he t\‘/ilic;lit years alonr; ‘.'thl‘. the nut of T3";- Uncleacl This, designated lin-imrte of a 'true' o rt star, ineVitably leading sortie pundits to brand Rialto as nothing more than the hobby horse of an idle iich~lzid Well to those detractors, Louis's rionna riet aphoristic on yo' ass
'There’s an old Arabic saying that goes, "Let the dogs bail: and the
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’So long as you can work authentic instruments with technology — that’s what fascinates me really,’ he says. ’The clash of the digital and the analogue, I suppose.’
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Victoria Williams Glasgow: King Tut's, Thu 1 Oct
The sad fact is that, until Victoria Williams was diagnosed With multiple sclerosis in 1992, she really was the best-kept secret in the rootsy sinner- songwriter scene It was only after luminaries like Lou Reed, Pearl Jam and Evan Danrlo banded together to record an album of her songs, entitled Sr.th Relief, to meet her medical bills, that America started to realise the treasure that had been under its collective nose The resulting charity, vtnich Williams helps to run, has raised more than $350,000 to date for musicians Without medical insurance
She’s been recording since 1987, but it's this year's Musings Of A Cfc’tfkdIDIX‘l' that shows the Williams brilliance in its fullest bloom in contrast to 1994's more electric loose, which featured members of REM, Soul Asylum and The Jayliav.l.s, this is a calmer, more diverse allair lininn-f: past the restrictions put lllI'Ul‘. 'rcvots' artists,
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‘.'Jlltlt‘ still lé’lclll‘lll’] a iiiar\.'ellc»iis hac let/oods Americana, Williams has as individual a wt \‘xl’llill’l an'l arranriiriri her songs as she S‘.‘.’ll(lilll(] \‘J‘llll ease hetv.-een charming riaivete and somethinc; rather more sinister, she even touches down in places only ion: lyllHliPll and Rickie lee Jones have passe-fl thrsurih hetore her You don't
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'.'Jhere she ‘.‘.'!2.“: her l.‘.arl; five acres of desert in Joshua Tree, at a fault izne hummingbirds
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Chile-rim, rrriht on tor:- htrt a iii-stint; spot for none the lc-ss Thr- the album were recorded in these evoc't’itn'e surroundings, less than a mile from ‘.‘Jltert' Gram Parsons died The unoredictability of her illness means that Williams can tour and record sporadically, and althouczh four years passed hetween her last album and this one, there's the tantalisinc; gtrr)sl)t‘ti of a sWil’. follow-up to Cr'eekcfirirter in the new year 7 possibly the children's album she's been tal'uiic;
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Victoria Williams: startling pioneer of Americana
2.1 See 8 Oct 1098 THELIST41