Vivers: Eat cheese before bedtime by all means. But anyone wanting off kilter thrills could do worse than standing in front of these three bands, who tonight fill the Thekla with woozy, dreamy takes on reality. Certainly This Is My Normal State exist in some sort of amniotic haze, everything slow, soft, beautiful. Though bolstered by drums, bass and cello, TIMNS are foundered primarily in the mix of Yuka Kurihara’s high, cooing wordlessness, and Adam Fulford’s clean, sparse guitar mangling. Things drift in a lovely way, between sudden flares of noise. Pretty, great stuff.
Pixieglas: It was a dark and stormy night, the weather had broken at last and it broke with aplomb. After all this hot weather it felt almost pleasant to be in a thunder storm by the sea, and it feels very appropriate looking out of portholes in a boat on a night like this. The Thekla is a wonderful venue for intimate gigs and it was with a bubble of excitement that we went downstairs to discover a wall of warm noise from THIS IS MY NORMAL STATE. Going down the harsh metal steps of the boat was like descending into a different realm, the echoing vocals pulling you into a subterranean world. The female Japanese singer on stage sang trance-like, channelling the stylings of Sigur Ros accompanied by a cellist and grungy guitar loops. It was a magical moment and when they finished and the lights came up I felt like I had been woken from a blurry dream. For the first band on to have this effect is rare and precious and made me curiously excited for what was to come.
Vivers: If Blue Roses get sick of knee jerk Tori Amos comparisons, they probably shouldn’t start with two strident piano bashing numbers. What follows is much better: Blue Roses being, for the most part, two glamorous ladies on violin, piano or acoustic guitar, and a set that tunnels deeper into deceptively winsome folsiness. Laura Groves is a pretty stunning guitarist, and the best moments tonight conjure up a lush, unsettling bucolic vibe, tigers in the tall grass.
Pixieglas: A couple of cans of Strongbow was to come next, followed by the beautiful psyche folk of BLUE ROSES. She seemed nervous as she took the stage but the nerves slipped away when she began playing, first on the piano and then acoustic guitar. These were hypnotic, meaningful songs with dreamy melodies sometimes harmonised with her violinist but often alone, speaking to a spurned lover with sorrow and hope.
Vivers: Could St. Vincent kill a man? You see her eyes flash sometimes, mid song, bright blue, lucid dreaming in the little worlds she’s made. Annie Clark is fucking cool: a tiny alien with big hair, directing her male backing band to clothe her songs of love and weirdness. Necessarily more stripped down than the bubbles of head-in-the-clouds torch singer rock she creates on record, onstage is still a fine place to be, with sax smarts and backing ‘ba-ba-ba’s, and in ‘Strangers’ and ‘Now Now’, sudden guitar riffs that come from nowhere, and send Clark skittering sideways. She’s in control though. Watch those eyes.
Pixieglas: People get on stage and get off stage. She is testing the mics from off stage so a disembodied Annie Clark voice trills over the DJ. And we wait. What we finally see is an amazing musician playing around with vocoders and effects pedals without detracting from the powerful melodies that have you humming her songs down the street for weeks. Live she comes off as far warmer than the porcelain, chastising voice that dominates her album “Marry Me”. I was expecting someone far more poised and cold but found her friendly and coltish on stage , engaging with the audience to the extent that she turned her routine into an impromptu stand up routine when technical difficulties struck. Standouts from the set were the powerful “Now, Now” the sarcastic “Marry Me” and the mesmerizing “Strangers”. Turning to run for the train with pained expressions on our faces we will definitely be catching ST VINCENT and indeed everyone on the bill, next time they come to town.
