So chapter 10 of the Camden Crawl just ended after unfolding under sunny skies on Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st, with the promise to unveil the best of international new music and give the opportunity to (re-)discover great acts.
Emerging marvels....
Mercury Prize alumnus, recently turned Charlotte Gainsbourg’s songwriter just for one number (or maybe more in future?), Conor O’Brien and his band, Villagers, played a well- received set and managed to turn the 2350-capacity venue, The Forum, into some cosy shelter for only three quarters of an hour. His woody-toned guitar is his voice’s best friend, and it was a treat to witness such great match.
Keeping things pure and simple, was former street performer (recently tipped-off by Jools Holland), Marques Toliver, at Proud, as part of the Levi’s Craft of Music event: guitars were nowhere in sight, in favour of electric harp and violin, to accompany his outstandingly soulful voice, which works wonders at contradicting the title of his brand new EP ‘Butterflies Are Not Free’- surely every lucky Levi’s Craft of Music competition winner must have had their share of butterflies, hearing him out.
Stoner rules...
At Annie’s, mono-tempo NYC girl duo, Creep, showcased their ambient electronica, peppered with cello, which somehow questioned the concept of ‘live’ performance as this was more of a DJ set, really. And the fact that their beats couldn’t escape comparison with fellow girl-girl outfit, Telepathe, didn’t curb my disappointment.
Things looked up at Barfly, thanks to Welsh stoner-folkstress Cate LeBon, whose sophomore album (her debut, ‘Me Oh My!’ is almost two years old) is greatly anticipated.
Onto The Spectrals’ surf pop at the Black Heart, full of groovy melodies, drowned in an overkill of reverb on singer Louis Jones’s voice (very Alex Turner-esque, in passing) but which, passed three songs, appeared samey-toned à la Best Coast (ironically the two bands shared a stage and a tour recently, during which they were seen covering Blink 182’s ‘Damnit’).
Fast and Furious...
Things paced up with the likes of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, dubbed the saviours of US Hip Hop at the Bedroom Jam arena, who provoked a riot noone had predicted, for likening the security staff to the LAPD and “politely” asking them to f**k off, which they did strikingly (read this literally), causing dozens of 15-minutes-of-fame-hungry punters to invade the stage to mimick/mime over the collective’s backing tracks, before being urged to vacate the stage so that noone would get killed, which they did without a moan (15 minutes had passed so mission accomplished as far as they were concerned), all safe and sound. That's the spirit, guys... OFWGKTA’s album, ‘Radical’ was released in May last year.
The beastie girls of Fever Fever and their awesome male drummer, who just stormed SXSW, were undeniably the highlight of Sunday, being fast and frightening L7-style and singing songs about dead animals and all that. With tunes like ‘Monster’, ‘Butchers Shop’ and ‘Static’ (all off ‘The Bloodless EP’), it appears that Norwich has got treasure to be shared.
Teen angst also prevailed at Underworld with North London punk revivalists, The King Blues, who fuse punk and spoken word to perfection, making their debut album, ‘Punk and Poetry’ (out now) so appropriately-titled. Close-up on the acapella solo by frontman Jonny 'Itch' Fox, ‘Five Different Bottles of Shampoo’, with the double-edged sword of either being well-perceived as a feminist anthem by some or dismissed as demagogic by others - I go left....
Big headed....
Though headliners did bring their bags of tunes, they obviously left hips of enthusiasm at home.
As the front lady of anthemic dance group, Saint Etienne, you would think Sarah Cracknell would lead the way and make the most the super spacious stage at Koko.Not: without even the burden of having to play an instrument, she remained static and uncharismatic and the closest she got to busting a move was by readjusting her boa scarf. Fair enough, she is (gracefully so, let it be said) getting on a bit but frankly she proved anything but indispensible in this line-up, especially compared to her backing vocalist.
At The Forum, Evan Dando and his ever-morphing outfit The Lemonheads, played a nice and tight 45-minute set with all the crowd pleasers from ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ to ‘Drug Buddy’ via ‘Big Gay Heart’, all of which back to back without even a drink-sipping break. Impressive at first glance, only if you brush off the fact that the guy played the entire gig head down, hiding his gorgeousness behind his still not greying hair (the guy has just turned 44), and only addressed the abundant audience (understandably so given than his UK appearances have grown scarcer and scarcer throughout the years) to say how happy he was to go back home. Surely a crowd who has had to make the difficult choice to favour his 90s nostalgia over the topical coolness of British Sea Power (at Koko) deserved more consideration! Needless to say that the nearing-10 minute-long plead for an encore was in vain.
With getting to see Razorlight at the Electric Ballroom proving a lost cause, due to two lengthy queues on either side of the venue that even a media pass couldn’t beat, Simian Mobile Disco turned out to be a fair consolation, as they unleashed their stereo lab at Koko and delivered beat after beat, particularly pleasing on ‘Audacity of Huge’. This said, already not the biggest "instrumental" music fan, having someone "perform" with their back turned to the audience just didn't do it for me.
All in all, despite this seemingly cynical account of the event, I did thoroughly enjoy and rate what was on play, which whether or not to my liking, was undeniably of decent standard.
And seriously, as the cider girl that I am, I shall be looking forward to next year’s Kopparberg [no, make it Rekorderlig, please] Camden Crawl. Get on it, you people at the HQ!
Phot credit: Jo Jo Lam
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