HIgh Windows Of The House Of Usher

I was going to make a joke about buying a piano which was a few millimetres too wide for my house, and being in luck that they had a pre-pared piano...except it turns out that the word "prepared" and the word "pared" are etymologically the same.  Never mind.  Shit joke, anyway.

LARKIN POE/ JESS MORGAN, Empty Room Promotions, Bully, 10/4/15

We tend to celebrate rich and complex voices, but sometimes there’s something to be said for simplicity and clarity.  Jess Morgan’s tones are light and instantly likable, less single malt smoke, more Baileys sweetness, and she has a winning way of delivering a lyric or melodic line (the latter of which her country-tinged ditties are far from short on).  “Connecticut” might be her best tune, a gritty but uplifting tale of low-rent hotels like a slightly morose Sheryl Crow, and if the show tends towards the airily forgettable, affable young ladies with acoustics swarm the circuit in their hordes, and Morgan clearly outstrips the majority.

Despite its tin-eared title, the Ameripolitan movement is a fine thing, saving US roots music from vapid cabaret chicks and Republican pinups whose only link with country is outsized headgear who look like fireman strip-a-grams and, but that’s not to say all commercially-minded Americana is bad.  There are many definitions of “populist”, but one of them is the neo-Benthamite desire to bring pleasure to as many people as possible, which is hard to argue against.  Atlantan sisters Larkin Poe could be ambassadors for this ethos, clearly determined tonight that the entire Bully should have as much fun as they do, and whilst their bluesy country pop might sometimes bring to mind the smooth stadium roots of Alannah Myles, it’s equally aligned with AC/DC – the opener “Wade In The Water” develops into a joyously huge dumbass rocker that could soundtrack a Southern fried reboot of Bill & Ted, and gospel groove “Hey Sinner” stretches stickily like cooling toffee, before mutating into a funkily minimal take on “Black Betty”.  The playing is sharp, especially Megan Lovell’s molten lapsteel solos, and the vocals impressive, but the duo never veer off into empty melisma or fiddly chops if the songs would suffer (and kudos to the one-man backing band, on drums and synth-bass, a clinically relentless mixture of Meg White and Mantronix).

Their three-cover encore might be the sort of thing to win over Terry Wogan’s listeners (“He’s so English” – hilarious), but sells an intelligent, creative and infectiously hedonistic duo short.  Tellingly, they make a point of celebrating the single dancin’ fool in the room vainly trying to turn a polite Oxford crowd into a moshpit: Larkin Poe aren’t afraid of commercial trappings, but beneath beats a heart of purest musical fire