Issue 58 / August 2015

Bido Lito! August 2015
11
I’ve made this rather egregious introduction because MARVIN
POWELL is the polar opposite of my Beatles experience. He
is almost entirely unknown. He does not project buckets of
character beyond his stature as a normal, chirpy bloke from
Wavertree. There is no flurry of orgasmic press to shepherd him
into the spotlight. Somehow, though, he is immediately familiar,
comforting and brilliant, enough to draw you in from the off. I
have heard three of his songs, and I’m only allowed to talk about
one of them. The man himself is strikingly low-key. Mystery is
a large part of his appeal, particularly since his voice, aching
with sadness, has emerged out of nowhere as a fully-formed
instrument. But there are no needless and off-putting layers of
mystique to wade through with Powell: this guy feels box-fresh
and ready to go, and he seems as bewildered by it as I am.
“I was never one of those people who would sit down and
learn Wonderwall,” he says over a patchy phone line, explaining
just how he’s arrived at a deal with Skeleton Key Records after
years spent on the open-mic circuit. He speaks in fits and starts,
getting reedier when he debates his finer points of expression.
In fact, Powell admits he isn’t great at interviews – “rambling”
is the cause, apparently, but I assure him that’s a common
affair with feature pieces, like long intros and professional selfloathing,
so he can chill. “I know where I’m going,” he tells me,
most definitely not referring to our conversation.
“I suppose music has always been a big part of my life. I had
violin lessons all the time when I was a kid, and I used to sing in
the school choir. The guitar didn’t come until later. When it did,
it was better for me somehow.” The image of a pleasant young
Powell, jiving away to his parents’ Motown records while working
on his treble, seems coloured by a greater ambition, albeit one
that took a decade or more to surface. Refusing to play covers
like his friends, he built songs from scratch, a skill that paid
off when he landed a job at Urban Coffee on Smithdown Road
when he was sixteen. It was there that Powell was exposed to
Liverpool’s strong amateur performance tradition. The die was
cast: “A lot of people came down, dead folky, and I slowly got
involved. I enjoyed watching people sing and tell stories as they
were doing it. Lyrics are so important to me – honesty, personal
or political. I’d seen gigs live on telly, but I remember seeing
these kind of players right in front of me for the first time, and
that lit me up.”
If he’s honest about finding his eureka moment in the Trojan
Horse of youth employment, he’s also forthcoming about his
influences. Nick Drake inevitably comes up – the folk-hero’s
fingerprints are all over Buried, Powell’s debut single – yet
other classic songwriters, like Neil Young and Paul Simon, skirt
at its edges. Perhaps this sense of sharpened heritage is what
helps lift the song to the effortless height it achieves: Powell’s
vocals are smooth and nervous all at once, hiccupping with
melancholy, supported by some dazzling 12-string guitar work.
The main riff sounds like it’s caught sight of Jimmy Page fiddling
by a cottage fireplace. ‘Lucifer’ is namechecked, a word 98%
guaranteed to sink anything, but amazingly he gets away with
it. The impression is of a confident artist avoiding a jamboree,
committed to translating the confessional element of the 70s
for the here and now.
Like his heroes, Powell can be conflicted about performing.
“There’ve been occasions when I’ve thought, ‘I’m never, ever
doing this again. It’s pointless. I might as well be farting down
the microphone,’” he explains, specifically about rowdy audience
members who don’t grant his lyrics their deserved effect. “People
who stand at bars with their haircuts, nothing more, do my head
in. And even if you get a good crowd, then you’re like, ‘Shit, I have
to focus completely now.’ I still crap myself on stage.”
This is strange, because up until now I’ve been thinking how
clearly those years spent paying dues for simple pleasures have
paid off. At any rate, it’s what led him to be spotted by Alfie
Skelly of The Sundowners, who agreed to cut a demo for him,
which quickly escalated into a four-track EP, then a full album
of material. The days of an artist banging out a proper record as
quickly as they are able have largely retreated into the blinkered
hell of VH1 docs; how refreshing to see someone buck the trend
of tentative songwriting, at the behest of their own principles.
Thematically, there’s a hazy psychological aspect to
Powell’s music, which he terms “light and dark”, or the
struggle of reconciling the human animal with its proper,
civilised counterpart. Although Freud “frazzles [his] brain”, he’s
fascinated by “trying to be emotional and feel things and be a
good person all at once.” There’s a distinction here between
intuitively accepting the worst in ourselves, while supressing it
to remain good, positive and hopeful that our sociable selves
will win out. “A lot of people can be introverted or extroverted
when they want to be. One day you might not want to speak
to anyone, and the next you’re out having a drink with your
mates and it’s cool. I don’t think people are one or the other.”
While it’s easy to see why a round-the-clock wallflower might
respond to a line like Buried’s “couldn’t find the beast bound in
wires”, it’s Powell’s loose, freeform imagery that makes a case
for imaginative redemption.
So what should people know about him that’s weird and
unusual, a stand-out fact in a sea of acoustic attention-seekers?
He can’t answer. Then he mentions the androgyny of his singing
voice, and the fact that he’s often mistaken for a woman till he
turns around and blokes notice his beard. A final conversational
stab draws a link between his lyrical ability and actor/playwright/
novelist Sam Shepard, who “rambles on for a chapter or two, and
the next page isn’t related to anything that’s happened previously
in the book. What he says is spontaneous, yet it links together
by the end and has this greater meaning to it.” Whatever strands
of importance Powell can muster will be thrilling to observe in
the months to come, just as his future takes tips from the past,
slotting seamlessly into our city’s aural veins.
Buried is out now, available through Skeleton Key Records.
Marvin Powell also headlines the Bido Lito! Social @ Aloft on
Thursday 20th August, which is free to attend.
soundcloud.com/marvin-liam-powell
bidolito.co.uk