Thursday 25 October 2018

Quarter masters: Sieben, Kate Arnold, Andy Whitehouse

If you've been around these parts before, you may recall my writing in the past about Sieben - the alter ego of Matt Howden, singer, songwriter, violinist and all-round sonic magician. (In fact, you can read my write-up of his latest album, 'Crumbs', here - it's a formidable set of protest songs, channelling a tangible sense of rage through such intricate and complex playing. Warmly recommended!)


Sieben gigs in London don't come round all that often - at least not as often as I'd like - so I was thrilled to find MH heading up an intriguing triple bill, arranged by Kaparte Promotions at the pleasingly intimate Servant Jazz Quarters in Dalston. The other two artists were completely new to me: Andy Whitehouse and Kate Arnold. (Both have full bands - AW, The Silver Darlings, and KA, Fear of the Forest - but for tonight's gig they were playing as solo artists.)

Andy Whitehouse was first on, and instantly brought the room to an attentive hush. His songs have an insistent gentleness, a quiet confidence that you will willingly succumb in your own time. His lyrics succeeded in being both witty and wistful simultaneously - for example, his tale of customising saints for one's own personal use, 'Anthony and Rita', has an aching sadness at its heart, while making you smile at how skilfully the metaphor is sustained through the song.


(Andy Whitehouse's 'Cherry Blossom'.)

I was also very taken with the guitar sound and style - quite unusual to hear electric guitar in this context compared to how often acoustics turn up, but perfect for this musician's soulful restraint. It charged the atmosphere with warmth. A lovely start to the evening.

Kate Arnold's set then took us off in a completely different direction. At the start, she tipped her hat to a traditional folk sound - fiddle and voice - for her song 'Shanty'. But suddenly all bets were off, as she began playing the hammered dulcimer - stroking it, tapping it, even bowing it - and layering beats and melodies to form 'Skeleton Key', a genuinely jaw-dropping track that conjures up glitchy electronica on this chiming, brightest of instruments.


(Kate Arnold playing a version of 'Skeleton Key' from YouTube, brilliantly filmed during a Daylight Music gig at the Union Chapel, Islington.)

It was an all-too-brief, but brilliantly constructed set, because hearing these two 'extremes' of KA's approach gave the ideal context to hear her remaining songs - as if the 'skeleton key' really did unlock her sound for us. The beautiful 'Fairy Tale Ending' is all the argument you could want for the dulcimer as sole accompaniment - coupled with her natural, affecting yet unaffected vocals, KA has somehow married a kind of 'roots' music to something otherworldly: as if you could reach for Dead Can Dance and Fairport Convention as reference points at the same time. Sincere, spectral and quite wonderful.

Rightfully, and righteously, Sieben's set then lit a fire under the whole gig. Live, MH loops and layers percussion sounds, basslines and hooks on the violin before singing over the whole heady brew. A restless musical craftsman, he continually pushes the violin/electronics set-up as far as it will go, reinventing his sound as his lyrical concerns change over time. He's gone pastoral, personal and now political, galvanised by the injustice and greed around us into producing a genuinely angry, bitingly satirical suite of songs: on stage, this results in a kind of punkish, yet puckish fervour. Always an animated, energetic performer, tonight it was like the stage couldn't contain him, and any minute he'd career out into the audience, taking someone's eye out with his whirling bow.


(Sieben's 'Coldbloods'.)

This idea of the anger almost boiling over and out of the music is all there in the arrangements, with many of the 'Crumbs' tracks featuring a relentless motorik pulse and grindingly deep riffs, before MH performs more solos on the fiddle than ever before, their explosive speed and agility seemingly providing a necessary outlet. 'Sell Your Future' sounded like a train that had already been derailed; 'Coldbloods' walked the tightrope between resignation and panic. It's been a great pleasure to follow Sieben live over the years, as older songs are re-cast in the newer sound: one such classic tonight is 'Love's Promise', a sensual ode which here becomes a slinkier, slightly more seedy beast - again, this time bringing out a lustfulness, more impulses that might be difficult to suppress.

The gig closed with all three performers gelling perfectly in a rendition of Andy Whitehouse's song 'Almost Home'. It struck me at this point - to the credit of Klarita, of Kaparte Productions, who organised the event - what a superbly programmed evening this was. It felt that buried in all their musical influences was a 'folk' sensibility of sorts - not necessarily trad folk, new or alternative folk, folk rock or any genre as such - more a connection to home, a gesture towards chronicling something that deep inside we all recognise - but then fractured and reassembled in the most diverse and creative ways imaginable. A shared brilliance.

Saturday 20 October 2018

Rick Wakeman's 'Piano Odyssey'

This post first appeared on Frances Wilson's excellent blog 'The Cross-Eyed Pianist'. For a variety of features that - alongside a special interest in all aspects of piano playing and listening - focus on wider classical music and cultural issues, please pay the site a visit here.

I was asked by Frances to review the latest album from Rick Wakeman - as I'm as much 'prog' as 'piano', this proved to be a happy assignment. Here's my write-up.

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Rick Wakeman: ‘Piano Odyssey’ (Sony Classical)
featuring the Orion Strings and English Chamber Choir

Rick Wakeman has been a consistently fascinating artist throughout his decades-long career. As a fan of both classical and progressive rock music, I feel he’s been a constant presence, his cape sweeping nonchalantly across any so-called dividing lines between genres and styles.

In contrast to the grandeur of some of his earliest and most familiar work, Wakeman’s most recent releases have felt more intimate and introspective. The 2017 album ‘Piano Portraits’ was just that: solo piano treatments – somewhere between arrangements and variations – of an eclectic range of pieces that covered Debussy and Fauré, Elgar and Holst, Bowie and the Beatles… and not to leave out his own band, Yes.

This new album, ‘Piano Odyssey’, is in many ways a sequel with seemingly deliberate echoes of its predecessor. As before, there are two Beatles tracks, and just the one from Bowie this time, amid other carefully chosen cover versions. Yes is represented by two new arrangements. On the classical team are Liszt, Dvorak and Handel.


As the album title suggests, though, a journey of some kind has taken place. Rather than simply repeat himself, Wakeman has added strings and a choir more or less throughout, diluting the forensic focus on the lone piano. However, the lush arrangements can’t disguise the fact that this feels like an even more personal project, surveying Wakeman’s career more incisively and giving it a perhaps unexpected unity.

I think this unity is behind the quality I loved most about the disc, which is that it sounds exactly like something its creator would pull together – and yet at the same time, it feels like a surprise, not quite like anything else. In theory, given the forces involved, the classical feel should dominate, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, it’s rather more like listening to a kind of ‘chamber’ prog: Wakeman often deploys his string players and singers as if they were band members, the choir in particular performing ‘solos’, moving in and out of tracks as needed rather than saturating them. His own distinctive playing has him operating like a combined rhythm and lead guitar might, capturing the melodies at the top end with great delicacy (and some very agile embellishments!), without sacrificing a sense of real propulsion.



As a result, the pieces that really hit home for me are the two Yes songs, in particular ‘And You & I’, and the reworks of two of his solo tracks, ‘After the Ball’ (now merged with Liszt’s ‘Liebestraume’), and ‘Jane Seymour’ (originally composed on organ, and with Bach coursing through its bloodstream). In the CD liner notes, Wakeman explains how the new versions make what he was trying to do clearer, more audible. And there’s no doubt that ‘Piano Odyssey’ is giving him the opportunity to shine a light on his practice: without trying to ‘match’ or ‘outdo’ Liszt, he has deliberately designed his medley to show how the composer influenced him. (Elsewhere, he uses this technique to illuminating effect in ‘Largos’ – merging Dvorak and Handel with the utmost respect, but a refreshing lack of deference.) Equally, in ‘And You & I’, the sparkling high-pitched melody is so evocative of Jon Anderson’s vocal it’s somehow uncanny.



I don’t think the record is totally flawless. How you react to the more familiar covers will inevitably depend on your relationship to the originals, and what you want a new version to achieve. I felt ‘The Boxer’ was a misfire: to me, the song, while tender, has an underlying resolve and pugnacity that befits its title. Here, the slow pace fatally weakens it, along with oppressive strings and the choir contributing isolated ‘lie la lie’s with no context. On the other hand, a similarly sentimental treatment of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ fits the song like a glove. The version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is shot through with wit, subverting any bombastic expectations the listener might have – even Brian May’s guitar cameo appears out of nowhere.

Two completely new compositions again emphasise the personal – named for two adopted moon bears, Rocky and Cyril (Wakeman is a passionate animal rights advocate). Writing from scratch in this idiom allows Wakeman to produce probably the most nakedly emotional tracks on the record, the signature traits (again, the steady motor, the climb to the high register) reflecting how much of himself he has put into these pieces. And I think it’s fair to say that the whole album – a heart-on-sleeve musical autobiography-of-sorts – wins through as an accomplished yet totally sincere attempt by the artist to communicate a true audio sense of himself.

Monday 8 October 2018

Bible black: 'Salome' at English National Opera

Brief alert - this production of 'Salome' carries a warning for adult images and themes... and to discuss it properly, I inevitably touch on some of those images and themes as well. So - please read after the watershed - and exercise discretion, as you will. Thanks!

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Well, this has certainly divided opinion. The 'ayes' and 'noes' are separated as cleanly as John the Baptist's head from his shoulders.

Some people seem to have loathed the new English National Opera ('ENO') production of Strauss's notorious opera 'Salome' with every fibre of their being - while others have been stimulated and impressed. If I had to make a call, I'd say that the critics have been broadly negative (some perplexed or irritated, if not nakedly hostile), while audience reactions online have been relatively warmer. Plenty in both camps, however.

And of course, nothing is without context. Some who are prone to unkind pronouncements about ENO have continued in the same vein. (Some have imperiously dismissed the very idea of the production, only to cheerfully add that they haven't seen it. Helpful.) Also, 'Salome' has got about a bit recently and other versions may be fresh in people's eyes and ears. The current Royal Opera House ('ROH') production by David McVicar was last revived at the start of this year, when I saw it for the first time. Placing the action in a kind of totalitarian nightmare environment, it's held by many as a kind of gold standard - and I can see why. Opera North also presented an acclaimed version (which sadly I didn't get to) in the spring: powerful though that sounded, it was essentially a concert performance - so the company sidestepped much of the potential staging trauma that 'Salome' must involve.

Fast forward to the start of this season, and it's ENO's turn to revisit opera's most troublesome teenager. For those unfamiliar, the plot is taken directly from Oscar Wilde's play (based on the Bible story), with the composer editing down a German translation into a lean, mean libretto: a single, relentlessly-paced act, running to about one-and-three-quarter hours.

Snapshot of the action: Herod, ruler of Judaea, has married his brother's wife, Herodias - making him stepfather to her daughter Salome. Since Herod had his brother killed, the set-up is already somewhat dysfunctional - made even worse by Herod's inability to disguise his erotic fascination with Salome. At the same time, Herod has arrested and imprisoned the prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist). Jokanaan is a fanatic: while proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, he also launches tirades against the royal family and, seemingly, Herodias in particular. But he survives, for now, because Herod is fearful of killing a holy man.

Salome, escaping from a palace feast and hearing Jokanaan's voice, demands to see the prisoner. Instantly besotted, she ecstatically praises Jokanaan's appearance, even while he vehemently rejects and denounces her. (The carnage starts early, as the guard Narraboth, who loves Salome, kills himself in dismay.) Herod, castrophically misreading the situation, thinks a dance from Salome will cheer him - and the evening - up. She eventually agrees, but only after securing a promise from him to grant anything she desires. Dance over, she demands Jokanaan's head on a silver platter. Herod does all he can to get out of the bargain, but Salome won't budge. When her stepfather ultimately gives in, and Salome receives the head, she finally tips over the edge and gives full vent to her lust. As she kisses the dead mouth, a horrified Herod orders his soldiers to kill her.

Even taking what happens at face value - the actual events of the original play and libretto - this is extraordinarily provocative stuff, careering headlong into some very dark psychological places. So extreme is its characters' behaviour, I can well understand why directors, let alone audiences, want answers, explanations. (McVicar's ROH production stages the infamous 'Dance of the Seven Veils' as a tableau of flashbacks suggesting the Herod has abused Salome in the past.)

This production starts in a very dark psychological place, and never leaves. What we see is the product of an all-woman creative team: director Adena Jacobs, stage designer Marg Horwell, lighting Lucy Carter, and choreographer Melanie Lane. In an ideal world, this would not be remarkable, or even especially 'meaningful'. But for this opera, I feel it has particular significance. It means that whatever queasiness or discomfort we might feel at the potential exploitation or objectification of Salome (or any of the other characters) cannot be put down to straightforward sexism or misogyny. If anything, this was going to hold a mirror up to the 'male gaze' and rightfully cast it, blindingly, back in our direction.

The staging seems to be entirely surreal/symbolic, not rooted in any kind of reality. Both background and costumes are uniformly black, as if nodding to the not uncommon 'repressive regime' style of staging to signify dystopia. But this is one of a number of instances where the production subverts expectations as it goes along. Rather than present Jokanaan's cistern as a dark dungeon, the stage is saturated in bright white light, as if referencing both his holiness and his uncomfortable illumination of the rotten society around him. The initial blackness also gives way to gaudy colour, both in an enormous, pink, decapitated 'My Little Pony'-style horse which appears as the centrepiece of the feast, spilling out its entrails of fake flowers, and in the glittery decayed decadence of Herod's and Herodias's outfits.


Salome's loss of innocence and, ultimately, sanity is telegraphed early and built on step by step, following its own logic but pulling the rug out from under our, and the opera's, feet. Almost everything around her in the production could double as a cipher, contributing to this development. When Jokanaan is first seen, flat out on the ground, he is clad only in briefs... and a pair of red stilettos. He never walks in these - he kicks them off well before he stands up - and if you wanted to make a plot point out it, you could imagine Herod (something of a cross-dresser himself) and a bunch of cronies taunting the captive and dressing him up. But I was also struck by the timing - Jokanaan kicks off the shoes and in some way seems to transfer a kind of sexuality, or at least sexual awakening to Salome. While Jokanaan is present and still very much alive, Salome strips to the waist while singing her lust for him, and (discreetly) masturbates while he preaches. (This is one aspect where I wondered if a woman directing has flagged what a bloke might not even have observed - that Salome is not a two-dimensional maniac who only reaches sexual fulfilment through necrophilia: rather, there are stages along the way before the madness provides the only release. Equally, if a male director had stripped Salome at this point in the opera, would we be able to assume something similar or might we doubt his motives? Questions, questions.)

There is a third piece of 'clothing' for Jokanaaan that I didn't mention: a skeletal mask that at first I took to represent a kind of torture instrument. However, it held a miniature camera, pointed back towards his face. As a result, a large, live projection of his mouth appeared on the back wall - in black and white, with the effect of looking slightly grimy/grotesque. This pointed up Salome's obsessive attraction/repulsion towards the prophet's mouth; it drew attention to his dark utterances; and it foreshadowed the expected kiss once his head is severed.

So it goes on. Narraboth's suicide results in a pool of pink blood on the stage. (Herod at various points returns to this, smearing himself in the gore as if he cannot remove the stain on his character.) Salome falls on Narraboth's body before it is removed, using it as a substitute for the unattainable Jokanaan. The floral guts of the suspended horse can be read as a 'deflowering' motif. Salome reappears as a kind of fetishised Lolita figure: white vest, black hot pants and trainers - later, this youthfulness will be underlined further as she flings aside her long blonde wig to reveal a boyish crop.

By this time, with a few taboos not just broken but smashed into a pulp, I wondered how hard the production would stab at the outrage button. With its burlesque/striptease pedigree (and the fact we'd already seen a half-naked Salome), what kind of 'Dance' were we going to get here? In the event, Jacobs takes another swerve. This Dance was brilliantly disturbing, with Salome - clothed throughout - slowly, deliberately assuming a brief sequence of poses (almost like coquettish exercise moves: turns, bends and stretches), then reclining while a group of cheerleader-dancers ramped up the speed and sexual tension.

Following this thread, when the head is finally delivered to Salome, the 'silver platter' is a cheapo plastic carrier bag - never opened. She cradles the concealed head but never 'consummates' her obsession with the kiss. It’s as if the production puts the brakes on the body horror once the psychological damage is done. Herodias appears behind Salome and you wonder if the mother will carry out a mercy killing at Herod's command before the soldiers arrive. In the closing seconds of the opera, Herodias - still directly behind Salome - helps her daughter raise a pistol and point it backwards, horizontally, directly towards her mouth. Is this the actual kiss of death? And if the gun is fired, both women would likely die in a double suicide. (At this instant, we recall Herodias's treatment by Herod and the circumstances of their marriage.) The lights go out before we hear the shot.

As I applauded, my head was spinning. This was an assault on the senses, and I approved. The production isn't there to make friends, but to kick arse. Making the case that a piece of vintage art - whether it's a period novel, Shakespeare play, or an opera - is Relevant To Today's Society can so often be problematic, because you can be passionately and genuinely keen to prove how the medium you love still speaks to modern times, while simultaneously being aware it can lapse into cliché. But given the ongoing reports we're now seeing of the horrifying - and shamefully widespread - treatment women receive at men's hands … is there a more appropriate story than Salome's to illustrate its devastating effects?


(Allison Cook as Salome. Photo by Catherine Ashmore, taken from the ENO website production gallery.)

None of it would convince, of course, without utterly committed performances - and we got those. Allison Cook, playing the title role for the first time, was fierce and fearless, singing with subtlety as well as power, and with such consistent character acting that it was hard to take your eyes off her during her significant time silent onstage. David Hoar as Jokanaan struck the balance between intimidating/commanding while prophesying, and the wracked melancholy of the doomed. It was also great to see some of the chaps from the mighty ENO Chorus - Robert Winslade Anderson, Trevor Bowes, Ronald Nairne and Adam Sullivan - cast in roles that allowed them to make their impressive, individual marks.

The ENO Orchestra under the company's Music Director Martyn Brabbins also deserve to share star billing. Rather than bludgeon us with high-octane hysterics, the sound was full of space, the Coliseum's acoustic almost providing a sense of 'stereo separation', all clarity and detail.

I think, then, that this is a vital and necessary production. It doesn't really matter to me that some people don't like it. I didn't like all of it and I didn't necessarily think every idea worked. (I thought the horse, for example, was too much of a distraction. The point I felt it was making seemed to be nailed more effectively elsewhere.) But I did like having these ideas thrown at me, challenging my preconceptions about the opera - both its story, and the wider issues it forces you to confront.

ENO has been - and can be - many things to many people. One piece of its jigsaw identity is as the alternative, occasionally rebellious, and even stroppy younger sibling of the grander ROH down the road. I think the grandeur of its own home venue, the Coliseum, sometimes makes it easy to overlook this side of the company's personality - and the brilliance of ENO Studio Live (and similar ventures) has helped to bring some of that punkish, guerrilla spirit back to the fore. That approach may always risk imperfections, but for me, this new 'Salome' is a welcome, dangerously contaminated, shot in the arm.