REVIEW COUNTRY—FOLK MARISSA NADLER Stereo, Glasgow,
Tue 13 May 0””
Waif-like guitar-picking girls are ten a penny these days. what with your Cat Powers and your Bat for Lashes already well established. And like the sphere of male singer-songwriters, it's a field which could easily become saturated unless peeple apply a bit of quality control to their listening tastes.
Conversely, it's also the kind of genre in which real talent can flourish, which brings us round to Marissa Nadler. the 27-year-old Bostonian appearing here as a guest of the rapidly-gaining-a-name-for- itself Huntley and Palmer's Audio Club. Nadler appears before her seated audience in a demure flowing dress and a voice like the wind howling through trees.
She is, it doesn't take long to dawn, a really quite special artist, and layers of poignancy are added with just enough artificial reverb to make it s0und like she's playing to an empty hall.
Among a stream of highlights, ‘Diamond Heart' speaks of death and adventure in sober, explicit terms, but it was her cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘l'm on Fire' that was truly stunning. (David Pollock)
74 THE LIST 5-49 Jun 2008
REVlEW CABARLl‘ NEUE LIEBE
The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sun 25 May 0000
‘This is much better than playing with dreary indie bands,’ says Andrew Eaton, singer with headliners Swimmer One. and then he quickly checks himself in case there are any dreary indie bands in attendance. He's right. though. A cabaret affair headlined by bands but incorporating comedy. magic. burlesque and sometimes just plain oddness. Neue Liebe is a different way to spend a Sunday night.
An irregular event — the next ones in August — in more ways than one. the show's hosted by Edinburgh poet and performer JL Williams and drag queen Penny Pornstar. who corral a suitably welcoming blend of glamour and haphazardness. Some acts are effortless and brilliant, like comedian Rowan Campbell. while others take a while to get going — Steve Wilson’s chat is awful, but his magic is stunning.
The musical final hour is perfectly pitched, though. Proficient Greek/ Polish folk act Fanattica recreate an authentically rowdy continental wedding party, while the Swimmer One are revelatOry, an urgent electro dance trio with louche charisma and engaging lyrical sensibilities. Absolutely not dreary at all, in other words.
(David Pollock)
me cry.
is out Mon 9 Jun.
REVIEW ART POP THE CHAP
Limbo@The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Thu 1 May 0000
'In case you didn't realise,‘ deadpans Chap bassist Panos Ghikas, ‘all our songs are about pleasure.”
Well, blow me down with a showroom dummy, who‘da thunk it? Because this pan-global North London quartet may throw synchronised statue shapes to their mutoid electro-disco cartoon cabaret, but beyond the japes there's a deep-set ennui at play.
Much of this only comes across on record, leaving Johannes von Weizsacker and chums to front an all-singing, all-dancing, cue-carded sing-along mini-spectacular. This is the kind of spectacle that benefits from an intimate space but in your heart of hearts feels that it should be jostling for space on prirnetime lTV. String-laden Artrocker Radio anthem, ‘Fun and lnteresting' is textbook Chap classicism, suggesting a well- drilled gang show conjured up by a Nordic choir in cahoots with Schneider TM and Salaryman.
ln touch with their ridiculous side as well as their post-modern music business. they're both outside and prick-kickingly a part of. The Chap are serious fun, and all the more super super for it. (Neil Cooper)
Tomorrow '3 music today This issue: Lykke Li
Floating somewhere between Feist and Bjork, 22-year-old Lykke Li’s breathy, sugary vocals got a bouncy, electronic makeover when Bjorn Yttling, of Peter, Bjorn and John produced her debut album. Since her catchy single ‘Little Bit’ came out in February on Moshi Moshi, she’s squeezed in a lo- fi Jools Holland set, some airplay on Grey’s Anatomy, and a US tour. We called her cellphone in New York to hear more. What’s the album about?
The lyrics are very open. It's my life. based on times when I felt lonely or happy, loved or not loved. I wrote it in my bedroom with an old computer and synthesiser. Certain songs like ‘Hanging High' made
How did you hook up with Bjorn?
We're both from Stockholm, which is small, but I'd hate people to think we all sit around writing music together. I just phoned him up. I didn't know his music then. but I wanted him to produce something raw and intimate. Not too pop. more dirty. with hip hop sounds too. How’s the tour going?
Press stuff is no fun. but I like travelling and performing, especially festivals where I can hang out with other artists. And I love being in New York, you can be anybody or nobody. I lived here for a few months when l was 19. before I started writing music. My favourite times are probably talking to Bjdrn or Mattias Montero (who directed the ‘Little Bit' video). I like it when we're being creative and my brain can go bananas. (Claire Sawers)
I King Tut ’3, Glasgow, Sun 8 Jun. Her debut album Youth Novels
REVIEW lNDlE POP JENS LEKMAN
Oran Mor, Glasgow, Thu 15 May 0000.
Modern pop is rarely as smart. affecting or plain funny as when it's in the hands of Jens Lekman. Nor as succinct. 'No encore, 11 songs. all hits,“ proclaimed the Swede at the start of his set. tongue lodged loosely in cheek.
Lekman has had hits. His second album, Night Falls Over Korteda/a. spent a week at number one in his native country last year. He remains a bit of an obscurity elsewhere however, perhaps for his outer veneer of tweeness. There's more than a shade of Belle and Sebastian, certainly, about Lekman‘s shy, lovelorn crooning, but then there's much more too: old SOul, rich 608 pop and Scott Walker-style lush string arrangements and samples.
Lekman's a romantic in the most unusual of situations, such as posing as his lesbian friend's fiancee at dinner with her Catholic father (‘Postcard to Nina'). or dedicating songs to girls on the radio during a spell in the clink (“You Are the Light') or secretly pining for his tax-evading hairdresser (‘Shirin'). He's not always the romatic though: he left his fans booing and stamping (there really wasn't an encore) in a surprisingly un-indie schmindie of fashions. (Malcolm Jack)