Olksf!

It's a pity I had to cut a few choice lines from this review to fall inside the wordcount threshold.  Probably my favourite was George Chopping describing the punters taking their seats being like One Man & His Dog in reverse.


Speaking of seats, people were up and about throughout this gig, going to the loo, buying a drink, having a constitutional stroll.  Sometimes people in posh, hushed Observer Magazine type gigs are just as annoying as those in sticky-floored dives, it seems.

YORKSTON/THORNE/KHAN, LAURA MOODY, Irregular Folks, St Barnabas, 19/2/16

It’s a cliché to observe that a good cellist makes their instrument sound like the human voice.  As an unarguably good cellist Laura Moody definitely does this, but as if to counterbalance, she makes her voice sound like an operatic space gerbil.  Or a battrachian brekekekex.  Or a jazz ballad cousin of Joan La Barbara.  Her opening song is a flurry of gasps and scrapes that sounds like a torch singer drowning in an offcut from Scott Walker’s Tilt, and before the second number is out she is taking the bow to her own throat to elicit a percussive wail.  Moody’s technique, vocally and instrumentally, is superb, but her compositions are more than just canvases for experimentation, and as the set closes with a brittle, reverby love paean, we are entranced.

Judging from the poster, top promoters Irregular Folk have added an S to the end of their name, presumably to make clear that their nights are as likely to feature electronic ambience and modern classical as anything traditional music related.  However, if you want one of Oxford’s most irregular folks, try well-lubricated MC George Chopping, who spends minutes commentating on those retaking their seats after the interval, before knocking over a drink, mopping it up with his shirt, admitting he’s never heard the last act, and swearing a lot in a church.

As is fitting for a (semi-)improvised show, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan’s set is a handful of sublime moments, rather than a gallop of glory.  There are times when the guitar, double bass and sarangi intertwine to create gorgeous sonic blossoms, and times when they merely politely eddy around a chord.  Unexpectedly, it’s the vocals that captivate, all three singing well especially Suhail Yusuf Khan, whose papery whisper can arc powerfully at unexpected moments.  The last number, James Yorkston’s “Broken Wave (A Blues For Doogie)”, a tribute to a dead friend, tugs with the emotional simplicity of vintage Christie Moore, with limpid accompaniment from Thorne and Khan: surprisingly, this lambent piece of very regular folk is what will live in our memory.