This was a bit of an eye opener of a night round the corner at The Luminaire.
I walked in just after Nicolette Corcoran had started her set she performed solo vocals with live sampling being used to create rythym tracks for her to sing over along with some simple percussion also used to create loops with that included her using a tin can that she struck a tuning fork at as she held the can over the mic to get a certain effect!
She has a great voice that sounds like a cross between Maddy Prior and Linda Thompson with hints of Michelle Shocked and in between songs comes across as a very posh jolly hockey sticks deb from the 50's even though she is far too young for that to be true! She has a couple of songs inspired by Strindberg and did a great version of WB Yeats' 'Sally Gardens' and a cool
version of Michelle Shocked's favourite nursery Rhyme "Daddies Going to buy me a mockingbird" (sorry if I have the title wrong). With a little help and a good break or two Nicolette could easily find herself a rather succesful artist with no amount of young men flinging themselves at her she is totally enchanting and I want to hear and see her perform again soon.
Next on were The Monroe Transfer which is of course the name of a bus ticket in Chicago amongst other things, but this lot are I believe London based and have been lurking in my myspace friends for quiet some time. They make modern classical music with a line up of 2 guitars, double bass, cello, viola, violin drums and the odd gadget. The music they make falls somewhere between Phillippe Petit's bip hop classicals reworking of Mahlers Off to Titan and JG Thirwells Mesoplagic Waters with long langourous
pieces slowly building into torrents of strings that envelope you and carry you off on a journey. I'm not sure what pieces they played but having taken them up on there 3 for £20 deal
on there cd's and DVD's afterwards I can say they are very into their packaging so the albums are more works of art than simple cd's one of which ('Trials') comes in a sack that has been
stitched closed and needed careful unpicking to get into it!
They played at least a couple of tunes from it including "These Are Bright Stars (& This Is How To Find Them)", which is a
wonderful haunting piece of music. Electric Old Wire Noise comes in a cardboard box in a limited edition of a 1000 and has a very cool and confusing fold out artwork come liner notes that fit the grandeur of the music that held everyones attention throughout their very cool and interesting set.
Finally it was time for Her Name Is Calla, a band that The Erewhon Kid has been Hollerin' in my ear about for some time and as they were playing round the corner I decided to give a go and I'm very glad I did.
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Their line-up included a violinist, guitarist, Bass, Cello, drums and keyboards and gadgets and Joystick nutty professor in the corner. Most of there songs start off very slowly and quietly and gently build and build and build some more into sonic cathedrals to encase my mind in sonic howls and yelps and messages from some alter reality.
They are also the sort of band most people prefer to listen to while sitting on the floor, or so it was at this gig as at least two thirds of us ended up sitting on the floor with several
people propped against the bar or walls and two couples canoodling on the seats at the far wall of the Luminaire.
There is a fearsome song about being on a plane that is out of control and heading towards a crash that seems to be an imagining of being on a normal flight that loses control and the music evolves from a beautiful begining that is almost classical and then eventually ends up in a chaotic,almost free Jazz almost Band Of Susans instrumental work out similar to their
Trollbinders Theme with hurricanes of noise coming at us as the plane crashes and burns.
The singer and band leader looks and sounds quite dour but what else you'd expect when he is singing about blood promises, the set built very well and after they asked if they had enough
time they launched into The Union: a truly epic song that they had explained should go on for half an hour and they didn't dissappoint as it is more a suite or short symphony than a song
and builds and builds from sparse beginings into an alternate universe of noise and sounds that skitter and shatter over us and leave us wanting more of Her Name Is Calla.
They did give us one more song and are gone and not to be easily
forgotten. I bought the beautifully packaged album The Quiet Lamb afterwards and look forward to listening to it. This was a great line up and all the bands are well worth checking out if they come by your local music venue.
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