08 September 2014 (gig)
20 September 2014
'Come to our label showcase at the Social'. Ugh, must I? Monday night, what to expect: another evening tolerating identikit indie heroes or a hirsute acoustician marking a required career milestone en route to Universal Music product manager/cheese-farmer/6music presenter, protected by their model major-hitched insider independent label - I know, too much London…
Thankfully tonight the label is from Nashville. DigSin's business model involves a slightly sinister bargain where for nothing more than your email address you get all their music free 'for the rest of your life' . They have brought two tremendous acts with them, a captivating Californian balladeer and a grinning, fizzing pop band from Sweden. From tonight's effortless entertainment it would seem DigSin's dogma is not about genres or stances, but direct musical communication.
First up is Lauren Shera, late of Monterey, resident of Nashville. Demure in sensible red dress, black hair in a bun, pale skinned, she looks likes a gold rush schoolmistress whose reliability and concern for the settlement children must withstand the darkest demands of her broken heart. Shera and band (lead, bass, drums) launch into 'The Crashing Sea' from her album 'Gold and Rust'. It's instant widescreen doomed David Lynch romance, cowboy twanging over a marching snare. Shera asks: "'have I stayed here too long/have the gates locked shut behind me?/I felt the rubble in my collarbone/I heard the crashing of the sea". It's an doomed, inevitable journey.
On into 'To Behold', a gorgeous pop-country mix, reflecting her California-Tenessee crossing, a killer slide guitar line leading into 'Rumours' harmonies. The band weave stately, emphatic grooves with luxurious blues licks and a gratifyingly big bass sound. All of which frames Shera handsomely, her voice recalling Baez or Nicks with better vibrato-control, her presence strangely internal but still expressive. The songs have vulnerability to expose but she does so with confidence and seriousness. This is her first trip to London, it's the label showcase, and she politely thanks the absorbed audience, but what's really concerning her are her songs and the band putting them over. Astonishingly she announces that this immaculate band met a few days ago and this is their second gig.
Her musicians leave, for her to close with the appropriately-title 'Strike Gold' on her Spanish acoustic. It turns out that her guitar has almost inaudibly driven the band all along. Country-pop/Americana/alt-whatever is crowded. But tonight Shera sounds steadfast, in for the duration.
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In glorious contrast are Swedish trio Like Swimming. Resembling a witchy home-counties folk trio from 1973, all smocks and waist length hair under hats, they gleefully leap all over the Social's tiny stage the better to enact their opening statement 'Dance Any Way I Please', from their just-out debut album 'Structures'. It's an anthemic entrance, rising chords with an elusive combination of hope and sadness recalling Prince or Kate Bush. The sunrise in the music is pricked by defiant, underdog lyrics: 'I'm gonna dance any way I please/by the power vested in me…they think I'm having a seizure/they think I'm out of control'.
On to the New Order house propulsion of 'Icarus' which widens via choral harmonies into a mass 'ba-da-da-da-ba-da' refrain which the audience willingly pick up - very Monday night indie club.
Their songs are a series of breakdowns, gear-changes and BIG choruses which transform the narrowest basement venue in W1 into a sun-drenched US football stadium during the dusk support slot.
Like Swimming burst with tunes and intricate upturned beats, using a minimal backing track and the barest of live parts, Ida Hedene spinning little piano hooks and Claes Carlstrom holding down two-note riffs on his acoustic. Drummer Petter Wesslander's demonstrative disco clattering recall's Blondie's Clem Burke and confirms Like Swimming as band with three stars. You don't know where to look.
None of which would count for anything without the songs. Their music draws unhinged dance-pop whose origins are with Scritti Politti, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys Prince and travel forwards via Outkast to the present. This is not 'pop' in the boy/girl band, reality-show-off, sense. Like Swimming make music that thinks it could actually improve the world by being explosive and uplifting. Some people think that's 'out of control'.
They close with 'Go Buffalo', bubblegum banging building to a vast harmonic chorus and breaking down to Kate Bush piano arpeggios under Ida singing 'We are all gonna die in the summer'. Sounds perfect.
