Issue 83 / November 2017

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REVIEWS Howie Payne (John Johnson / johnjohnson-photography.com) Howie Payne + Lee Southall + Mel Bowen Harvest Sun @ Buyers Club – 12/10 It’s always heartening to see the return of a much-loved son of the city to his old stomping ground. It’s an even sweeter experience when that person is HOWIE PAYNE, performing with a band again after a couple of solo tours, and armed with a brace of fine, sunblushed new material from his stunning new album Mountain The experience finds him well too. “Yeh, I’m really digging it. I haven’t played the songs with a band for a while, or some of them ever, so it’s very fresh and exciting.” Following Howie Payne’s social media over recent years, and watching him go about putting the Mountain album together, we find a songwriter who’s not only happy to engage with his fans, but one who fully welcomes the experience and understands the power it places in the hands of artists. “When I put out Bright Light Ballads eight years ago, social media was still quite new… What I was attempting then was to do what is pretty normal now, to release music directly to your followers – not so much that you couldn’t do that before, but the concept of that is normalised now and the tools to do it are readily available to anyone. Think about that man, that’s phenomenal.” Before he takes to the Buyers Club stage, the evening gets underway with MEL BOWEN’s own brand of North West soul songs, fresh from his new Every Day’s A Holiday EP. Bowen is a prolific writer and performer and a gifted guitarist, as comfortable with Bert Jansch-style picking as he is to play around with the time signatures. His is a characteristically strong EP, picking up on late 70s New York folk and soul flavours. The melody of Squaring The Circle, for instance, could easily be taken straight out of the Gil Scott-Heron canon. Given extra colour here on electric piano and the warmth of close harmony by Emily Valerio, it makes a great opener. Another highlight from the set, and the EP, It’s Not Easy adds to the New York vibes with its be-bopped bossanova grooves. “To me, the songs are more harmonic in a lot of ways, and my love of soul and psychedelia is maybe more upfront” LEE SOUTHALL has talked in the past about making a journey between two worlds. And those two worlds couldn’t really be much more different. From life as a member of The Coral to the world he occupies now as a solo singer-songwriter, on the heels of the release of his first solo album Iron In The Fire, it’s certainly been a brave journey that has also seen him settle in Yorkshire and become a father. In Accordance is an all-out, eyesclosed, blues-folk slow groove, John Martyn-flavoured, deep and almost religious until the leap to some intricate double speed picking. Spread Your Wings may be a message of hope to his daughter, and is an absolute highlight of the set, with the classic songwriter imprint of Townes Van Zandt or Jimmy Webb. The reverent mood in the audience throughout his set is more than deserved, this is another son of the city making a most perfect return. From the ringing out of the first chords of the stone cold, Dylanesque classic When The River Rolls Over You from The Stands era, the warmth of the crowd and the smiles on the faces of the devout and the devoted welcome Howie Payne home. And we can tell he loves being home, as he told us later, he misses the place. “Oh yes, especially my family and friends. I come back up all the time, and it’s really cool to see so many positive changes in the city, and especially to see how much cool new music there is, and how there’s a real community around that.” Based in London with regular trips to Los Angeles, Payne has crafted together, with this new record, a set of songs that speak, both musically and lyrically, of a confident maturity and of the wisdom of his time. The knowledge of the road, the years journeyed to get him here, and his sheer gift for melody combine to create a piece of work which could well go down as a classic in the city’s musical history. “Well, I’m excited for everyone to hear it so I want to get it out as quick as possible. To me, the songs are more harmonic in a lot of ways, and my love of soul and psychedelia is maybe more upfront,” he says. The set at Buyers Club features a handful of songs from Mountain, such as The Brightest Star, a sparkling country pop gem, fed over shuffling skiffle drums, insistent, immediate and absolutely infectious. Holding On is a sweet soul ballad which highlights Payne’s voice – scratched with a slight crackle – the melody both pleading and uplifting, and the chords, barely touched on his Gretsch guitar, lending their sparse support. The crowd absorbs these new moments, these fresh new journeys, welcoming into the fold them as new friends, forever to be held close. Set amongst and around older Stands favourites from All Years Leaving in this set (strangely with nothing from their underrated second offering Horse Fabulous), the songs from Mountain highlight a real step forward for Payne’s writing. There’s added depth and clarity in the writing, and in the intervening years, his voice has picked up a richer, more soulful tone. Howie Payne should be regarded as one of greater songwriters, up there with Head and Mavers, and that much is plain to see as the band strike up a glistening, shimmering versions of Here She Comes Again. An absolute classic, without doubt, delivered with the air of a man who knows it is. Following this with understated new song Some Believer, Sweet Dreamer shows that soul in his voice well, with all the earthy feeling of a mid-70s Lennon, or Jeff Buckley’s Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk album. With final nod to All Years Leaving, performing the title track, Howie Payne leaves the Buyers Club stage to grateful cheers and with a gracious thank you to the crowd for their support. A truly effortless performance from one of our classic songwriters, in every true sense of the word. Paul Fitzgerald / @NothingvilleM 44
Loyle Carner (Michael Kirkham / michaelkirkhamphotography.co.uk) Loyle Carner Arts Club – 30/09 Known for his unique brand of “confessional” hip hop, random acts of kindness (offering tickets for sold out shows to any fan who can find him a vintage footy shirt) and loving his mum (who guests on his latest record), it turns out LOYLE CARNER is pretty great live too. The theatre-style bleachers are packed as we move from the bar, down the sloping floor and into the centre of the space at Arts Club. The room is bustling, filled with young faces eager for a glimpse of their favourite rising star. Carner takes to the stage amongst screams and whistles; having done his time playing support to Nas, Joey Bada$$ and MF Doom, Carner finally has his own headline tour, and a Mercury Prize nomination for best album under his belt. The South London hip hop artist arrives wearing the colours of his favourite team, LFC. Though sport can often divide our city, the red shirt-wearing, scarlet scarf-toting Carner gives a cheeky grin as he asks the room for “unity” tonight. His debut album, Yesterday’s Gone, opens with Isle Of Arran, a track infused with spine-tingling gospel vocals and ecclesiastic clapping, which also serves as his opener tonight. It’s a brave move; at once a wellknown track, and yet jarringly introspective. The staging mirrors this invitation into Carner’s world, with a stripped back setup not dissimilar to a family living room, a comfy chair sat at centre stage. The crowd is young, energetic and loyal to Loyle – more than half the room enthusiastically chant his lyrics back to him throughout the set, as he runs through candid tracks Florence (an ode to the sister he never had), and the double bill of BFG and Cantona, both written for Carner’s step-father, the man who raised him and passed away last year. Each song is preceded by a short introduction by Carner: “Do you mind if I tell you a quick story?” Endearing, open and ever-eloquent, each interlude makes us feel a little closer to the man on stage. Mid-set, Carner introduces his producer and beat maker REBEL KLEFF, and asks the room if we’d like to hear him rap. We cheer, and Carner and Kleff explode into an improvised a capella mini-set, spitting beats over one another to rapturous appreciation. Back to the catalogue of sensitively-written verses; Carner plays a couple of his more upbeat numbers Damselfly, Stars & Shards and the bluesy, brassy tones of Ain’t Nothing Changed. The pairing of chilled out jazz refrains and stripped-back hip hop drum beats works beautifully, providing a soft backdrop for Carner’s sharp-edged lyrics. The set draws to a close far too soon, as Carner announces his final track of the evening the room is clearly hungry for more. Shrugging “why not?”, Kleff lines up the rocky bassline for what is perhaps Carner’s best-known track, NO CD. We weave our way to the front of the stage as Carner launches into the opening refrain: “Oh please, we ain’t got no Ps/Because we spent all our money on some old CDs/We got some old Jay-Zs, couple ODBs/Place ‘em up in perfect order ‘cause my OCD”. Carner’s heaviest, funkiest track launches straight in, the room goes wild, and offers another opportunity to share the mic with Kleff; a fitting end to a deeply personal set. Sinéad Nunes / @SineadAWrites The Big Moon + Get Inuit + The Mysterines EVOL @ The Magnet – 6/10 Following their unexpected Mercury Prize nod earlier this year, London four piece THE BIG MOON’s star seems to be in the ascendant. Still, it’s perhaps a measure of the precarious nature of indie music that a band who should be very much in the public eye are playing downstairs at The Magnet. It’s a packed-out venue that awaits the headliners, but there’s a sizeable crowd early on for the local support, THE MYSTERINES. And they’re well-rewarded. The trio are nononsense rock ‘n’ roll, kicking things off in an MC5 garage-style. Lead singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe is a ready-made star, with a voice that mixes Wanda Jackson grit and Courtney Love howl and guitar licks sitting at the centre of each song. There’s even something of the deadpan delivery of Aubrey Plaza in the way she introduces tracks Sticky, THC and 50s Knifefight. Already being backed by Skeleton Key, The Mysterines are set to be another of Liverpool’s essential live acts in the city’s full-tobursting roster. Touring support GET INUIT are a marked change. Fitting somewhere between Blue Album Weezer and the noughties indie-lite of The Hoosiers, their set is daffy and silly, if self-aware. The lead singer has plenty of patter, but comes across more Timmy Mallett than Rivers Cuomo. The group’s sense of making the most The Big Moon (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu) REVIEWS 45
Page 1 and 2: ISSUE 83 / NOVEMBER 2017 NEW MUSIC
Page 3 and 4: LIVE IN THE MAIN BAR FRIDAY 24 NOVE
Page 5 and 6: WHAT’S ON Liverpool Philharmonic
Page 7 and 8: CONTENTS New Music + Creative Cultu
Page 9 and 10: EDITORIAL Over the past couple of y
Page 11 and 12: DANSETTE Carl Roberts of melanchola
Page 13 and 14: The underground street art movement
Page 15 and 16: From performing pop songs in her li
Page 18 and 19: “Without a doubt, Merseyrail Soun
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Page 22 and 23: 22 KINKAJOU POP-UP JAZZ CAFÉ
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Page 26 and 27: CELLULOI Liverpool is fabled for it
Page 28 and 29: E V E N T H I G H L I G H T S JOIN
Page 30 and 31: We believe passionately in Liverpoo
Page 32 and 33: SPOTLIGHT DIALECT “A loose conste
Page 34 and 35: PREVIEWS “In the end it’s not a
Page 36 and 37: PREVIEWS GIG Lucy Rose Stanley Thea
Page 38 and 39: BOOK NOW: 0161 832 1111 MANchestera
Page 40 and 41: AEG PRESENTS & DHP FAMILY, IN COOPE
Page 42 and 43: REVIEWS Träd, Gräs Och Stenar (Ke
Page 46 and 47: of it is shared by the front few bo
Page 48 and 49: NOV 2017 - MAR 2018 WINTER GARDEN E
Page 51: THU 26th OCTOBER to TUE 30th NOVEMB
Page 54 and 55: SAY THE FINAL Homotopia takes on th
Page 56: INVISIBLE WIND FACTORY - LIVERPOOL

Issue 83 / November 2017

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