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When you live in a place, it sometimes becomes easy to dismiss the local music scene, or even feel that local bands and artists are just plain stale. Norwich becomes like this easily, with regular nights showcasing the same artists over and over again. With the exception of Norwich Arts Centre, it’s difficult to find both a good venue and a good show in the same place. To find a local band that is exceptional when exploring the streets of Norwich, however, is a rarity.

Alloy Ark are themselves such a rarity. The boy-girl teenaged duo make fun folk-pop tunes that I can honestly say are nothing like anything else I’ve heard on the UK music scene at the moment. Recent signings to Norwich-based and Norwich-oriented label NRONE Records (The Kabeedies, Violet Violet, These Ghosts), Alloy Ark release their debut EP ‘To, The Bottom Of The Sea’ on October 4th.

Other parts of the UK can look forward to shows from Alloy Ark soon, as the twosome are relocating for university around the time of the EP’s release.

Below you can watch two video tracks, recorded by the wonderful Norwich outfit GetOnTheSoapbox:

Alloy Ark – Columbian Coffee

Alloy Ark – One Two Three

Photo courtesy of The Daily Growl

Three weeks ago I went to see David Thomas Broughton play at the Basement in London’s City Arts and Music Project (CAMP). A bit of a delayed review, you might think… well, yes, it is, and that’s because it’s taken me this long to work out what I thought of the gig. Here goes…

On record, I like his music. It’s beautiful, it has a wonderfully stark, malevolent ambiance, and it is kept from being standard, “one man and his guitar” fare by the subtle employment of loop-pedal-layering and an un-precious approach to percussion. Unsurprisingly, I expected to see the same qualities in evidence at this gig; they certainly were, but so too was an apparent determination on DTB’s part to prevent his audience from having a straightforward engagement with the essential prettiness of what we were hearing, something which he achieved by drowning many of the songs in abrasive feedback. For me, this was extremely frustrating, because I like pretty guitar parts, and mournful, sonorous vocals, and I like to be able to appreciate them without too much effort; nevertheless, the underlying beauty of his songs was definitely still, underlying everything, which is something.

From a technical point of view, it was fascinating to see and hear this music being played live, a process that DTB has turned into something of an art form. Though the songs are quite distinct from each other, there was some sort of common procedure at work in their realisation, which seemed to roughly follow these guidelines:

1. Play a pretty guitar part, loop it

2. Add complimentary guitar parts, loop them

3. Put your guitar on the floor and stand up

4. Sing some lovely, plaintive vocals, loop them

5. Add harmonising vocals, loop them too.

6. Kick your idling guitar in a whimsically inadvertent manner to provide a bass-drum-boom, loop it

7. Throw some clanky objects – a capo, some jangly bells, anything close to hand – at the wall, or at a chair, adding more rhythmic texture, loop the resulting sounds

8. Get another guitar, an electric one this time, create a blanket of feedbacky squall, loop it

9. Sing a bit more, but don’t loop it

10. Cut nearly almost all of your loops out, leaving only one or two playing

11. Start playing your next song, beginning at stage 1.

All this was executed very deftly, and the technical demands of building-up these songs did not prevent Mr. Broughton from adding a further, theatrical dimension to his performance. Throughout the show, he mimed, postured, clowned, and eccentrically danced around the stage; an arch physical narrative to accompany the piecemeal construction of his songs, by turns amusing and weird. This wry theatrical delivery combined with the improbably layered music to make him come across, as my friend insightfully put it, ‘a bit like a magician’.

Frankly, I thought all this extra stuff is a bit superfluous. I really enjoy the subtlety and gentleness of Mr. Broughton’s recordings; the layering and showmanship of the live show, impressive and entertaining though it was, lost its novelty quickly, and the noisy dirge that eventually engulfed most of the songs was definitely on the wrong side of grating. It seems to me that the more beautiful elements of his music, the parts I find most affecting, were excessively obscured by burlesque and intentional cacophony, things that were not in themselves unenjoyable or out of place, but that might have been used more judiciously.

Anyway, I still think David Thomas Broughton is great, and pretty unique, and deserving of credit for being wilfully weird and willing to make a racket out of, and over, the folky rudiments of his music. I just won’t stand a metre away from the speaker stack the next time I see him play live.

Anna Calvi go off to a cold start on the Sunday afternoon of Secret Garden Party, launching two songs into her set before taking the time to introduce herself or even acknowledge her audience. Full of musical complexity and interesting alternative sounds, Anna plays to a medium-sized crowd accompanied by a multi-faceted female accomplice who skilfully pushes the boat out with a range of percussion and an accordian-like instrument I hadn’t ever seen before.

With lungs like a luxurious modern-day siren, it’s very much evident that Anna is extremely talented, but in the festival environment, I can’t say that she was moving peple. Comparing the beauty’s performance with Beans On Toast’s on the same stage the day before (Beans being on earlier, perhaps making it a more difficult slot in his case), the well-sized audience just didn’t seem to engage with Anna very well. People came and went, watched with mild enthusiasm for a few moments, some for the entire set, but they just didn’t look invigorated by Anna.

The music is really great, but I’d be interested to see Anna in a gig environment rather than a festival one. I wasn’t convinced by her stage presence or her performance on this occasion, but here is a talented artist, bursting with potential, so let’s hope everything is on its way up now for Anna, and that she’ll get the hang of engaging festival audiences by next season.

If you cross-bred Mumford & Sons with Fleet Foxes, I imagine that Alms is what you’d get. “Mumford & Sons? Fleet Foxes?” I hear you say, “What amazing bands! Alms must be pretty good!” Well, now that you mention it, they really are.

The four-piece from West London (now based in Bristol) are one of the most interesting bands I’ve heard of late, and they’re a blogger’s dream in this respect, as I think I’m one of the first people to write about them.

Having already played Communion Bristol to roaring acclaim, you’ll next catch these wondrous folkies at The Selkirk in London. Until then, check out their MySpace page, and grab three free tracks from their Last.fm page via the links below:

Alms – Simply

Alms – Shove

Alms – Your Spine

Aussie beauty Lisa Mitchell, born in Canterbury, England but raised in New South Wales, Australia, is just twenty years old. She’s probably best known for the appearance of her lovely song ‘Neopolitan Dreams’ on a fabric softener advert a couple of years back. It may have been Persil but I might be mistaken. I digress.

Lisa took to the stage of the packed out Living Room tent thirty minutes late due to an unexpected and complex full band setup behind her, and completed a short set of perfectly pretty acoustic ditties that went down well with a music-hungry audience of acoustic appreciators.

Lisa’s age and “genre” seem to naturally lend her to comparisons with other young folk star such as Laura Marling, but if we’re going to pigeon hole Lisa anywhere, I’d place her beside other lovely Aussie folk ladies such as Emily Barker instead. I didn’t feel like I got a full idea of Lisa and her music because of the shortness of her set and the huge number of people making the full tent feel like it was about to burst at the seams, but certainly what I heard I liked.

There’s something very un-English, magical and perhaps even exotic about Lisa and her sound, and it’s refreshing, impressive and very much pleasing to the ear. I look forward to catching Lisa Mitchell and her band elsewhere for a longer set later on in 2010, but until then, she really is an artist well worth a listen.

Oh, and here’s that advert…it was Surf, not Persil:

Lisa Mitchell – Neopolitan Dreams

One song into Ed’s set, he tells the totally full 500-capacity Living Room tent that he’s played Secret Garden Party three years in a row now, and the past couple of years, he’s played to fewer than twelve people each time. I’d say that that was the moment that the entire tent fell in love with Ed Sheeran – that’s assuming, quite wrongly, that most of them weren’t already in love with him of course.

The ginger Norwich boy (wahey, go Norwich!) is a recent Island Records signing, and has toured extensively thus far in 2010, including dates with Example, Just Jack and Ou Est Le Swimming Pool amongst others. His eclectic reggae infused acoustic music reminds me of Newton Faulkner and Jack Penate in places, and his “one man and a guitar” approach is anything but the half-arsed sound you might imagine amid the wide selection of Mumford & Sons wannabes seeming to dominate acoustic, guitar-based music at present.

Ed uses loop pedals and multiple microphones to create a beautiful, textured and rather indefinable style of tuneage that any god muso can’t help but indulge themselves in. This is truly interesting music, and I can certainly see why Ed has been garnering so much attention over the past few months.

Ed’s commendable, chilled-out set was truly fantastic, and with a major now behind him, I think any casual observer can see that this is a gent destined to go far behind the NR1 confines of his Norfolk roots.

I have two confessions. Firstly, I went to see I Blame Coco because Coco Sumner, frontlady of the band in question, is the daughter of Gordon “Sting” Sumner, and Mr Sumner’s music is something I was raised on and have liked since childhood. He might not be considered that cool these days, but I’m not afraid to embrace a little Sting love. Second confession? I kind of think I want to be Coco Sumner, or perhaps be her best mate at least.

The talented 19-year-old took to the main stage of Secret Garden Party in a cloud of smoke and a sound collision of electro-inspired pop-rock for a just-the-right length set that showed off Coco’s roots, but also lived up to  a well-deserved reputation for unique and engaging live performances. Her explosive musical sound and style is incredibly active, and for rather a small young woman, she has a wonderful way of filling such a huge stage – from dancing around to inviting members of the audience on stage with her and the band.

Highlights included debut and current single ‘Self Machine’, the second song of a wondrously hyperactive set, and final tune ‘Quicker’. As well as flawless vocal delivery, Coco proves she can hold her weight musically too, by picking up a guitar for a couple of well-receives tunes midset.

Having seen Coco’s acoustic performances on the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage, my expectations for the full live show were rightfully high. I Blame Coco definitely didn’t disappoint, and I’ll definitely be picking up a copy of the album as soon as possible. Really wonderful stuff.

I began my very first Secret Garden Party experience with a packed out show at the Where The Wild Things Are Stage, and the wild thing in question in this case was the amazing Beans On Toast – aka Jay, who runs the amazing Flowerpot venue in Kentish Town. I first encountered Beans On Toast performing solo at a sold out Frank Turner show in Cambridge last year, and when I saw him appearing full band on the Secret Garden Party lineup, I knew the performance was a must.

Remarking at the fact he’d been rewarded a 45-minute slot at the festival as his are usually only 20 – a fact he would repeatedly bring up to his captivated audience throughout his wonderful set – was the first of many amusing observations that varied from festival sex and personal hygiene through to a heart-felt message that his audience members should go and pick up their own litter, as he’d started his festival going antics as the bloke who picked up people’s rubbish behind them professionally.

After a couple of well-received solo tracks and a lot of talking to get us warmed up, Jay’s extensive full band Beans experience entered the fray, and impressive that they were. Ranging from festival drugs to falling in love, the subject matter of Mr Toast and friend’s unique, genuine and raw songcraft is great in every way you could imagine.

Perhaps not a set for the delicate, sensitive or easily offended, Beans On Toast is an apt poet and storyteller, a musician and notorious performer, and a force I’d truly challenge anyone to reckon with. If you ask me, Beans On Toast really is the way every festival should begin.

As Saturday nights go, mine was a real treat. I was lucky enough to be one of 200 people who spent it at The Flowerpot in Kentish Town (incidentally a venue run by the amazing Beans On Toast), where the advertised “members of Mumford & Sons” were in fact joined by Damien Rice, Pete Roe, Alan Pownall, and Angus & Julia Stone for an unforgettable night of music madness.

I arrived before the 7pm opening time and was glad to have done so when I joined the back of an already long queue outside the tiny pub. Until after the music finished at 11pm, the outside of this musical den was brimming with people hoping to earn themselves a place inside to touch elbows with the stars and hear some inspiring tunes – with a one-in-one-out policy, however, an exceptional few were in fact successful!

First to grace the stage was the wonderful Pete Roe, who treated us to his new EP ‘The Merry Go Round’ (released through Communion, of course) in its entirety, before inviting a collective of other musicians on stage for an epic finishing number that really set the scene for the rest of the evening. Angus & Julia Stone were up next, and impressed with a short and beautiful set which concluded with a wonderful cover of Grease’s ‘You’re The One I Want’, for which Damien Rice joined them on stage. I’ll definitely be checking out Angus & Julia’s next show.

The Communion brand is well-known for its collective, community spirit, and the addition of Damien Rice on an otherwise rather Communion-oriented lineup was not out of place. The caveman-fashioned Mr. Rice invited twenty or so members of Communion’s star-studded audience on stage and acted as conductor to form an impressive vocal version of ‘Volcano’, complete with grouped audience harmonies and body percussion. An extraordinary scene to watch unfold, standing just an arm’s length from the action. The drummer who performed with Damien later told me they met on stage, having never played together before.

Alan Pownall followed the Damien Rice experience, and where most would seem underwhelming after such a unique performance from Damien Rice, Alan didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Aided by members of Mumford & Sons on stage, Alan performed four beautiful songs that showed enchanting personality and passion. Our friends over at The Ruckus were savvy enough to grab an acoustic session with Alan upstairs after his set – you can check out the videos here.

My first London Communion experience was exceptional, and the man running the show – the also exceptional Kev Jones (formerly of Cherbourg) – deserves all the praise in the world. Having been going to gigs since age 12, I can honestly say that this was one of the best nights I have ever had the privilege of attending. Long live Communion.