Live music listings: July 2006

Kindly supported by the Norwegian Embassy in London

Doors 7.30
£8 via WeGotTickets or £9 door

''Little Things' demands to be heard and cherished for its audacious beauty.'
[The Sunday Times] CD of The Week
"Warm whispers seem to dance in the air and the meaning of music is revealed. Subtle and moving." [Observer Music Monthly]
''Little Things' is rooted in the strength of an extraordinary ordinariness and that's what makes Hukkelberg's album so compelling'
[The Wire]
"'Little Things' arrives understated yet fully formed, a hushed but radiant bunch of songs...Hukkelberg's voice is equal parts Stina Nordenstam and Nina Simone"
Uncut ****
'Divine. A delicate and deliciously sensuous tiptoe through fairground folk, jazz and electronica. A subtle, soft-pawed delight.'
[Time Out]
'An astonishingly seamless mosaic... 'Little Things' is an album that best rewards close, undistracted attention, its every delicate tendril capable of sprouting a blossom.'
[Pitchfork]
Having emerged last year from her native Norway with the acclaimed 'Little Things' album, Hanne Hukkelberg was an unexpected surprise from an even more unexpected place. But talent spreads as talent does, and her debut album gained fans rapidly.
Her singing touches on multiple layers of feeling, infusing the music with an impish mirth beside a visceral sweetness, gliding up and down the musical scale like cotton candy spinning onto a stick. With the unique force of a Nina Simone, Cat Power or Stina Nordenstam, hers is an unforgettable voice, bound to an almost sacred, heady swathe of music. A palpable sense of weightlessness abounds; her songs seem to dance on air, with an essence of enchantment and otherworldly bliss.
More info here.

Main support from the wonderful Barbarossa
"Folk-tinged perfection." [MusicWeek]
"Absolutely lovely." [Huw Stephens, Radio 1]
"The musical equivalent of a light box in this darkened season." [Comes With a Smile]

...and first on is Alexander's Festival Hall and their glitch-croon-electronica-pop-meltdown.
Dusting himself off from the ashes of europopsters Baxendale, Alexander M. cleared his throat and tutted gently. A weekend’s exertions in a Cologne techno club had left him recovering in the elevated confines of the Royal Festival Hall bar. In such inspiring surroundings a plan was hatched and he resolved right there and then to sprinkle a bit of olde worlde charm upon those enchanting modern computerised rhythms still echoing round the little grey cells. To bend the beats with ballads, to light a torch near the sad heart of the disco night.
The result is Alexander's Festival Hall, a kind of arts centre of the mind, where squelchy disco, creaky jazz strategies and Dean Martin’s rider collide to make something really rather special.
“His music goes very well with a Tom Collins. [Spektacle.com magazine]