SHEARWATER + Jason Kent + Ain + One Imaginary Girl [DJ]

Fri 20th Oct 2006

The Luminaire presents
SHEARWATER
+ Jason Kent
+ Ain
+ One Imaginary Girl [DJ]

Doors 7.30
£7 via WeGotTickets

"Shearwater are capable of emotional resonance through the most brittle of arrangements. Stunning." [Uncut, 4-star review]

No longer to be known as Okkervil River's "other band", Shearwater has transformed itself to the point of reinvention on 'Palo Santo', the band's fourth album, on Fargo Records.
The first Shearwater release to be made up entirely of songs by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Meiburg, 'Palo Santo' resembles previous Shearwater albums only incidentally, and Okkervil River less still.

"Palo Santo is one of the year's best indie-rock albums." [New York Times]

'Palo Santo' is a thrilling, paradoxical record; icily warm, welcoming and threatening, sloppy and immaculate. The austere folk that was a trademark of previous Shearwater records makes periodic appearances but thorny forests of static and distortion have sprouted up to occasionally obscure it. The band also channels previously unheard influences; the driving staccato piano of 'Seventy Four, Seventy Five' recalls early John Cale, and some of the record's more disorienting soundscapes could inhabit the same strange continent as Nico's Cale-produced classic 'Desertshore.'

'La Dame Et La Licorne' suggests Talk Talk covering 'Madman Across the Water'; 'Failed Queen' a grotty three-way orgy - circa 1970 - between the Velvet Underground, the Incredible String Band, and 'Meddle'-era Pink Floyd. 'White Waves' uncorks a swaggering and impressively heavy electric guitar riff, while 'Sing, Little Birdie' might be some forgotten 78 of an old standard, warbling through a morphine haze.

"Opening track 'La Dame et la Licome' with its minimalist piano, impossible Meiburg falsetto and gradually unfolding arrangement (drums, guitarist, violins) sucks the air from my lungs like a Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk track." [Magnet]

"Shearwater evokes washed-out swimming holes full of corroded batteries and bad dreams. The group's haunting 'Palo Santo' lopes around guitar, piano, banjo, and the voice of a singer who sounds unduly poised even when he's on the brink of losing it. Portentous atmospheres and patient pacing recall the ornate movements of late-period Talk Talk, but flashes of fuzz and brusque indie-rock urgency make the rarified moods bristlingly real. It's the kind of album that can steal a breath and pay it back, with interest, after the debt is long forgotten." [The Onion; Grade: A]

Main support is Jason Kent of Montreal. Moody instrumentation, dreamy lyrics, ghostly keyboards, steeped in psychadelic undertones of Alt country.
"A strong debut that reflects Jason's talent for melody and simplicity" exclaimed Montreal Music Press.

First on is Ain. Ain plays an old acoustic guitar generally tuned to open d and sometimes taps his foot on a wooden wine box. His songs have a definite twinge of old folk-blues like that of Skip James or John Hurt - short, simple songs with an easy emptiness to them. He tries not to make the lyrics overly delta-bluesy as that could come off a bit crass, seeing as he never worked in the cotton fields, but he tries to add some of the wording or imagery they might use.
We booked him for this show after hearing approximately 45 seconds of one of his songs. Come early and hear why.

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