Oblique House Music

It might be worth mentioning in passing that Here Come The Warm Jets is one of the greatest albums ever made.

EMMA HUNTER/ LONDON GRAFFITI, Its (sic) All About the Music, Jericho, 16/3/23

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards are a collection of mysterious, unusual, or downright paradoxical prompts to help anyone hitting a creative brick wall, perhaps most famously employed during the recording of Bowie’s Berlin trilogy. If we were invited to add a new Zen zinger to the deck, after witnessing Emma Hunter tonight it would be, “Restrict the options to expand the possibilities”.  The Hunter palette is elementary, just Tom Bruce on drums, and Emma on guitar and vocals; this latter pair can be put through a looper to build up extra textures, but this means that all the elements have to be immaculately placed to avoid any messy bleeds and clashes. Although the first thing to impress you about the set might be the rich layers of vocal harmonies (encore ‘Treacle Well’, with its breathy vocal sections, sounds gloriously like Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’ exploding in a cathedral made of mirrors), what you might marvel at later is Tom’s inventive and ornate drum parts, which manage to fit in the gaps between Emma’s complex constructions whilst still oozing character and ideas. Jazz drummers might play in the pocket, but Tom inhabits the very seams.

Emma’s vocal melodies are touched by wonderfully subtle embellishments, trills, and curlicues, which nod towards techniques and traditions from the Mississippi delta, Spain, and North Africa, whilst always sounding natural and unforced. This is especially clear on ‘Morire’ (meaning to die, or fade away), a new single launched tonight which concerns someone drifting inexorably into alcoholism. We can definitely imagine Marc Almond interpreting the song’s tragic emotion well – though definitely not with Emma’s cast-iron pitching.

The ingenious exploration of limitations shown by Emma is contrasted by London Graffiti’s support set. They have plenty of charm, a literate cross between thoughtful British indie and melancholic American rock that sits somewhere between Counting Crows and Elbow. Singer JP has a warm, unhurried voice that edges towards the urbane passion of Paul Simon, but occasionally the lead guitar clogs the songs’ arteries with solos and wah-wah interjections that get in the way of the tunes. The last two numbers are more stripped back, and all the better for it.  London Graffiti put in a strong showing, but sometimes you just wish their approach was more...oblique.