Diagrams

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect seeing Diagrams live. Listening to their recent album ‘Black Light’ (released under Full Time Hobby Records) is a real treat in funkiness but it’s the type of music you can imagine being slotted into police drama by the BBC, but not performed live. A new project of Sam Genders (former co-frontman and songwriter of experimental folkies Tuung), they made their debut to a full tent at last year’s End of the Road Festival.

The first thing that struck me about them was the sheer number of members on the stage. At one point – the ‘orchestra’ included – I counted nine people. That’s a lot for the eye to take in. It took a while for the group to get organised, a subtle nervousness in their demeanour that reminded me of a watching a kid’s Nativity play; though happy to be there, some just looked like they wanted the performance to be over. Plunging into ‘Antelope’ I noticed that Genders has a voice that is not dissimilar to Tunde Baiyewu from Lighthouse Family. ‘Harder she comes/Harder she falls’, he beated in raspy intonations.

Next up was ‘Ghost Lit’ – one of my favourite tracks. Though a little off-tune vocally, the song was about minimalist, crisp sounds. ‘In the morning light/I was baking up bread/In the afterglow/Of a long night spent in your motorcade…/A broken whisky bottle is all you’ve got to show for losing your control.’

The third song was interesting; Genders wallowed in a low ‘doo doo doo’ for about a minute, keeping a waiting audience in suspense. Looking around me, I could sense growing impatience. A bit too artistic.

It was a short set, lasting just forty minutes and seven songs. They played ‘Peninsula’ – a song about death. It’s slower and more mellow than the other songs on ‘Black Light’ and very beautiful. A little violin here, guitar there, ‘With the bones of small animals caught in the woods/…the photos were too dark to see but you could conjure up danger and safety/By running your fears down the ridge’ Genders swooned in crisp tones.

I wouldn’t quite know whether to call Diagrams a ‘band’ as opposed to just Genders and His Folk. Throughout, I got the impression that Diagrams is just a one-man project; it wasn’t like seeing a five-piece band where everyone has their place. They finished with what will be their next single ‘Tall Buildings’, a groovy tune that you can dance to. Overall, not a great live performance, but definitely a very rateable album.