Luke Jerram’s Gaia is, undoubtedly, a beautiful thing. A seven-metre replica of Earth, spinning slowly above the altar in the Cathedral is utterly awe inspiring. In theory, these Up Late shows allow audiences to marvel at the beauty of the earth and enjoy some brilliant music too. It almost works out that way.
Bristol-based trio, Hands of the Heron, are about to release their third album, Quiet Light, and this show marks the last night of the tour to celebrate that fact. Their three voices are magnificent together, weaving polyphony around the cathedral’s pillars, sending rapturous beams around the spinning globe. When the voices of Claire Vine, Beth Roberts and Bec Garthwaite overlap and overlay, they are simply gorgeous. These are secular hymns, glories sung to the planet rotating above them.
Words tumble, a babbling brook of silvery sound, sometimes feather-light, sometimes velvet soft. Acapella moments that are as lovely as anything else in this huge room, they easily compete with the majesty of the architecture. Vine’s clarinet occasionally adds colour and shape, Roberts’ acoustic guitar does likewise. Boat Song, from Quiet Light, and Watercolour Fade, from the previous album 13 Moons, are both lovely, they are gently contemplative and bob and turn on the trio’s vocal currents.
It is, however, clearly a bit of a problem trying to control the acoustics of the Cathedral. Spoken voices are inaudible, Garthwaite’s electric guitar feeds back until it is cast aside entirely, some of the subtleties of this gorgeous music gets subsumed by the echo and sustain of the room. Fortunately, this is a building made for voices that can be lifted to the ceiling and Hands of the Heron have three that do exactly that.
Toby Hay and David Ian Roberts are fabulous guitar players from Wales. The four improvisations that they play fit, perfectly, with the ambience of the evening. They spin around a focal point, crystal droplets and sunrise gleams radiating all around. At times they are meditative, almost raga-like, melodic patterns of white, blue and gold.
These pieces would be best heard in a peaceful reverie; the nature of the evening, however, means that there is chat and movement all around. People wander around the space, gazing at Gaia, exchanging whispered conversations, there are children pattering around, letting out delighted shrieks. A forgiving person might suggest that this all adds a gentle percussion to the improvisation, a further layer to the experiment. It becomes slightly hard to work out whether this is a “gig” or whether these musicians are simply a soundtrack to an exhibition.
In some ways this uncertainty seems to affect Frankie Archer too. She is, quite simply, the most exciting thing in the Folk world at the moment but it feels as though the ambiguity of the evening leaves her slightly wrong-footed.
Oxford City and Lucy Wan are deliciously haunting, spectral beats and delicate loops allow Archer to build entire worlds around her. Where the acoustics made it hard for some, Archer thrives here, there are shadow-y Folk Horror flickers behind the arcadian columns. Fair Mable of Wallington Hall, from the recent Pressure and Persuasion EP, is another that reaches out with tenebrous fingers, a Nosferatu clutch drifting across a wall. Her voice is manipulated, deepened, distorted, different characters emerging through the gloom. It’s thrilling stuff.
A new song, built around an interview with a miner is heart-rending, the tremulous, aged voice telling of explosions and fear. It is as dark as a pit, as dark as the furthest reaches of a cathedral. As Archer segues it into Close the Coalhouse Door it becomes claustrophobic. The lazy spin of the Earth above her is completely forgotten as these stories of real-life terror unfold.
Due to the nature of this evening, Archer dispenses with some of her more upbeat songs but those that survive are joyous. The Peacock Followed the Hen and Elsie Marley are both songs from her native North East, both have a twinkle in their eye, both have a certain female-led defiance. They both dance below the great orb that floats above us, they swoop and swoon and, once Archer has looped and sampled herself, it feels as though there is an army of her on that stage.
Up Late Folk was a lovely idea. The artists were brilliantly chosen but, sometimes, it was hard to work out what was more important, the music or the experience. For much of the time, the music demanded more attention than the space was willing to give it.
Gavin McNamara
TallFolk 