Wilkinson Soared

I feel remarkably chipper for a man who did the entire Punt, from 19.00 to 00.45. I think the secret is to drink halves. Mind you, having bought my first drink in the monstrously overpriced Malmaison, halves were all I could afford!

This review is boring, sorry about that. Oh, by the way, pocket knives are great...

PETER WILKINSON – DEMO


Press releases and demo covering letters can contain the most startling load of old bollocks. More often than not we’re confronted with meaningless bombast, horrible mixed metaphors and enough typos and grammatical errors to make an Open View editorial look like a legal document. The Peter Wilkinson Group (well, let’s be frank, “duo” is the word you’re searching for, Pete) are different though, informing us simply that they play original songs, that they’re based in Southampton and Oxford and that they “formed in December 2005 when I wrote some songs and thought they were good”. Now, this could mean that Peter had written scads of songs previously before consigning them to the bin, but we prefer to imagine him suddenly grasped by inspiration one afternoon, picking up a pen and phoning an accompanist mate. Because, really, that’s the beauty of being a singer-songwriter: there’s no need for days spent in rehearsal and arrangement, no need for hours wasted waiting for the bloody drummer to show up, you can just grab a guitar and throw down any passing experience, catching it fresh before the moment passes.

Peter’s songs are evidence of the strengths of this approach. Nothing here is overworked, especially not the jauntily picked guitar, and the lyrics are neither trite cliché nor pompous poetry, managing to capture an emotion in neat simplicity. Opener “Party” sums a up a sudden outburst of frustration with “I can’t even think for TV sound” but it’s the recording’s centrepiece, “My Wife”, that truly sends shivers. Written from the point of view of an old man caring for his Alzheimer’s stricken partner, this could easily be a messy affair, tugging needily on the heartstrings. However, by concentrating the majority of the song on the couple’s past, Peter doesn’t leave the listener feeling bullied into an emotional response. “Our children have got children now” is one of those elegant lines that tell us more than verses full of dense details possibly could, and when the punchline finally comes, the unsentimental starkness of the words “I just carried her from the bathroom” could fair bring a tear to the eye.

Peter has certainly found a deft verbal economy that makes his songs come alive, but he’s perhaps a better composer than performer. His voice is open and likable, but delivers in an odd mid-Atlantic accent we’re guessing isn’t 100% authentic, plus he tends to lose his pitching on the low notes, to occasionally jarring effect. Oddly, the vocals fare best on the most intricate piece, “Ballad Of Confusion”. With it’s unexpected jazzy chords and sudden changes of dynamic, this song perhaps fancies itself as a bit of a Jeff Buckley special, but it somehow feels a little over-egged (though it’s certainly electric guitarist Malcolm Levitt’s finest moment). Apparently plans are afoot to expand this outfit to a full size band. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, but part of us wants to see Peter keep knocking out the beautifully simple narratives, and unpretentiously finding that he thinks they’re “good”. Because we do too.