Authenticity

There is a great deal of new music at the moment which might loosely be termed 'folk' or 'traditional' music, much of it refashioned in fresh and interesting ways. I'm still enjoying the quaint charm of Alasdair Roberts' 'Farewell Sorrow' album twelve months after its release, whilst on the other side of the pond, acts such as The Be Good Tanyas seem to be drawing new inspiration from traditional American forms. Whether or not this music is successful is to some extent reliant on how authentic or convincing we find the performers. Can this old fashioned vernacular really be applied to their contemporary life experience?

I find it easy to overcome such misgivings when listening to the sublime new album from Jolie Holland. Holland has become something of a cult figure since the release of her ramshackle self-recorded debut 'Catalpa' late last year. She collaborated with the Be Good Tanyas on their early material, and has gone on to find a distinctive voice of her own. 'Escondida' is a seamless melding of traditional country and jazz phrasing, not a million miles away from Norah Jones, but without so much as a trace of coffee-table blandness. Holland's vocals are so evocative that it seems misleading to either pigeonhole her or make comparisons - but the closest to this wonderful music I can think of is the equally talented Erin McKeown. 'Escondida' is as intoxicating and addictive as the 'Old Fashioned Morphine' that Holland sings about. It is rustic and familiar, yet simultaneously mysterious. 'Black Stars' is elusive, with many twists and turns in its melody, whilst the piano-led 'Amen' is simple, elegant and touching. Holland fares just as well on re-interpretations of traditional songs. 'Old Fashioned Morphine' is a hybrid of 'Old Time Religion' and Blind Willie Johnson's version of 'Wade In The Water', and is infused with a convincing blues spirit. When the brass tumbles in, there's an unmistakeably Tom Waitsian feel to the track. It therefore comes as no surprise that the man himself is a fan. 'Mad Tom Of Bedlam' is brilliantly inspired, stripped down to just Holland's laconic phrasing and some nimble brush drumming. At its best 'Escondida' is an imaginative refashioning of traditional forms, and a signifier of a dynamic songwriting talent.

I feel a little guilty for saying this, but I'm much less convinced by Devendra Banhart. His life story supposedly starts in Texas, but after his parents' divorced, he followed his mother to the slums of Venezuela. He was discovered at the age of 20 by Swans mainman Michael Gira, unwashed and homeless, who immediately signed him to his Young God record label. Gira thinks that Banhart is 'the real deal', and that his music is honest, sincere and completely devoid of any postmodern irony. It is a shame therefore, that his music is not completely devoid of pretension. Banhart is undoubtedly talented - his finger-picked guitar playing is frequently remarkable, with a resonant sound strongly resembling the guitar that formed the spine of Nick Drake's best records, or the naturalistic guitar sounds of early Bob Dylan. He also has an unusual and striking singing style, with hints of vulnerability and introversion. Yet his melodies too often meander, and both the titles and the lyrics are characterised by a tendency towards meaningless verbosity. When he is at his most concise, the wordplay can be touching, occasionally even humorous, but there is always the lingering sense that we are being admonished by someone who spends more time cultivating a neo-psychedelic mystical folk image than on actually forming an emotional connection with their audience. There's something slightly studied and academic about Banhart the wandering hippy nomad, named after an Indian preacher, an utterly mesmerising performer, the real deal. I wonder if this image might be stripped away, and there would be a more honest, compelling and original performer left behind. I will give the album a few more listens. In isolation, some of the tracks are striking in their stark simplicity - particularly the opening 'This Is The Way', 'This Beard Is For Siobhan' and the gently rolling 'Poughkeepsie'.

With the case of Joanna Newsom, the links with the folk genre are slightly more tenuous. Whilst she shares a stark, uncompromising style with Banhart, her harsh, childlike vocal and her choice of instrumentation (mainly harp and harpsichord), place her very much in a category of one. 'The Milk-Eyed Mender' is one of the most unusual albums I've heard so far this year - distinctive in both its approach to composition and execution. I must confess to finding Newsom's voice a bit of an obstacle - but then I thought that about Kate Bush when I was younger, and I'm now besotted with 'The Kick Inside' and 'The Hounds of Love'. Newsom is immediately striking vocally - an extreme, high-pitched squawk that also manages to be tender and touching at the same time. There's a chance that this album, with its whimsy and quirkiness, may well be a slow-burning indie gem. Newsom is signed to the wonderful Drag City label (American home to Bonnie Prince Billy, Smog, Royal Trux, Weird War and many others), and has already received the patronage of Will Oldham. I therefore feel almost obliged to like this record, so I'm persevering as much as possible. In places, it is effectively simple and touching (particularly 'Bridges and Balloons', 'The Book of Right-On' and 'Sadie') but it's also undeniably a challenge to listen to the album from start to finish.

Her lyrical approach is a little hit-and-miss, occasionally sounding forced or pretentious ('Oh, where is your inflammatory writ?/Your text that would incite a light, "Be lit"). More often than not, however, she finds a natural and insightful voice. Album opener 'Bridges and Balloons' begins with the marvellous lines 'We sailed away on a winter's day/with feet as malleable as clay/but ships are fallible I say/and the nautical, like all things fades', surely as evocative an opening verse as we can expect to hear all year. So few lyricists manage to conjure such wistful feeling whilst constructing such intelligent wordplay and inventive internal rhyme schemes.

There is much to admire here - and if I've implied that the album as a whole might be irritating, it's nowhere near as infuriating as 'Crickets Sing for Anamaria' by Emma Bunton. That attempt at Latin-chart crossover is possibly the most inauthentic record I've heard all year. But that's another story entirely....

Together or Alone

A crazy long weekend has just come to pass in which I journeyed to Manchester to see Morrissey's first gig in his hometown for twelve years, prepared for a testing interview and still somehow managed to slot in going to see An Evening with Rufus Wainwright, The McGarrigles and Martha Wainwright at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The two shows were both excellent, albeit in very different ways, and it's hard to see how they might be bettered as the two best gigs of the year.

The sense of anticipation for the Morrissey show at Manchester's colossal Evening News Arena was almost unbearable. Press hype, both locally and nationally, together with genuine popular demand (tickets reportedly sold out within half an hour, although that statistic ignores the fact that standing tickets actually went on sale a whole day early) combined to give the show a feeling of a genuine event. That anticipation may well have turned to frustration whilst the eager audience members who arrived early to claim their space in the front rows had to endure half an hour of Damien Dempsey. Dempsey is just another in a long line of singer songwriters to be given the 'new Bob Dylan' tag, the kind of journalistic comment tossed away without any consideration of the material. Whilst Dempsey may have been pleasant enough musically (although tending towards blandness), his lyrics were so painfully earnest that they sparked extreme physical discomfort. He sang about human greed, the dangers of drug abuse and positive thinking - all messages fine and good, but not when presented in such a simplistic fashion, together with hackneyed rhyming dictionary couplets. His singing style also seemed to incorporate a bizarre hybrid of Irish and mock-Jamaican accents. It's really quite difficult to see why Morrissey has given this singer his patronage (Dempsey will also act as support for Loudon Wainwright III at Meltdown)when his writing is worthy only of embarrassment. Oh, and he really did have a song called 'I'm Never Going To Let Your Negative Vibes Get Through To My Psyche.' Good for you Damien - we'll just ignore you completely. It's for your own good.

Franz Ferdinand made for a striking contrast. Whilst I like the band in small doses - their album seems to do little more than repeat the same formula over and over again. The ridiculous levels of excitement that have greeted them has therefore occasionally seemed excessive. Perhaps a crisp, concise, high profile support slot is the best context in which to see them - because they were electrifying. Musically, the performance was tight and controlled, and characterised by a seemingly boundless energy and intensity. The crowd certainly seemed appreciative - and in much larger numbers than is usual for an Arena support act. Franz can now attract a sizeable audience for themselves. It was great to see so much playful interplay between the band members, and even the lowpoints on the album had new life breathed into them. A great warm up for the main attraction.

Comments about this show on the morrissey-solo.com message board seem to have been mixed, with some bemoaning a lack of surprises in the setlist or anything distinctive from the shows Moz has performed so far in the USA. This kind of talk is one of my major bugbears. Really, the set could only have been familiar if you had read all the setlists before attending, or if you had spent a stupid amount of money following all the gigs on the tour. To my mind, this was a consistent, esoteric set-list incorporating new material, a generous handful of Smiths classics and, most intriguingly of all, some unpredictable selections from Morrissey's solo past. A Greatest Hits of Morrissey it was not - but this should not be viewed as a criticism.

At the outset, Morrissey and his band milked the fervent anticipation for all it was worth. The lights went down, football chants of 'Morri-ssey!, Morri-ssey!, Morri-ssey!' erupted from various areas in the crowd, and an old Frank Sinatra song played over the stereo. Then, a most peculiar intro tape, consisting of a list of items reminiscent of England - poll tax, Stock Aitken and Waterman etc played over droning keyboards. Then, finally, after a good five minutes, they appeared, Morrissey looking sophisticated in a blue suit, singing the opening line of 'My Way' ('regrets, I've had a few...'). 'First of the Gang to Die' made for a most effective opener - anthemic, upbeat and immediate. Even though the album had only been out for a week, most members of the audience had already embraced this brilliantly evocative song. Many in seats were already on their feet, belting out the chorus.

For me, the most striking element of this show was how well these songs translated to an arena venue with a substantial audience. 'Everyday is Like Sunday' became a communal singalong - and even the slightly less obvious choices from the solo catalogue ('I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday', 'Such A Little Thing Makes A Big Difference', 'Hairdresser On Fire') filled the venue with a rich and impressive sound. Much criticism has been levelled against Morrissey's band for being a collection of workmanlike, uninspired musicians - but the playing to me seemed vibrant, full and entirely complementary to Morrissey's distinctive vocals. They have now, on-and-off, been reliable support for Morrissey for the best part of fifteen years, and their unity is emphasised tonight by Morrissey's telling comment - 'we do have a new album out, and praise God, somebody likes it!'

Morrissey may hate the word 'perform', but if to perform means to communicate to an audience, to connect with them, and to entertain them, then that is exactly what he achieved. Standing in front of huge Elvis-style letters lit up to spell his name, and whipping the microphone coil, making extravagant gestures, he seemed every bit a modern icon. In recent years, he has also learnt how to deploy his voice in a greater variety of ways, losing some of his more mannered techniques and replacing them with greater power and range. The Smiths songs therefore were mere nostalgia, imbued instead with new life and a sense of grandeur (particularly a brilliant 'Shoplifters of the World Unite', closing the main set). He also seemed in good humour, lambasting Britney Spears before a masterful performance of 'The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores' and reporting that seven more copies of the album needed to be sold to secure the number one spot (it now appears that it has entered at number two, stuck behind the stupefying dull Keane).

On his birthday ('it's great to be 29. Where did the years go? Why did the years go?'), this performance seemed like vindication, victory and a celebration of a career that, while inconsistent, has marked Morrissey out as a great survivor. Judging by amusing new track 'Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice', he's continuing to move forward. Hopefully we won't have to wait another seven years for the next album. The inevitable encore of 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' was moving, and in self-deprecating style, Morrissey left the stage first, leaving his band to exit one by one, an effective final touch to a massively entertaining night.

Some minor gripes - it would have been great to hear at least something from 'Vauxhall and I' - perhaps 'Now My Heart is Full' or 'Speedway'. Whilst 'Irish Blood, English Heart', 'Crashing Bores' and 'First of The Gang To Die' stood as strong as anything in his solo back catalogue, some of the new tracks were replicated in excessively faithful fashion, even to the extent of reproducing the production trickery. 'How Could Anybody Know How I Feel?' lumbered as much as its studio version, whilst 'I'm Not Sorry' still felt limp and bland. 'Let Me Kiss You' and 'I Have Forgiven Jesus' are strong songs, but may well have worked better if given a bit more room to breathe. Still, only minor problems really. Anyone seeing Morrissey at Meltdown or Move is in for a treat.

Watching Rufus Wainwright and his family at London's Royal Festival Hall was an altogether different, more intimate experience. The venue is actually quite sizeable, and certainly imposing, but this endearingly shambolic evening genuinely felt like they were all playing in our living room. Everyone seemed in good humour, Rufus joking that the 'last time we played this show was for Grandma.' If there had been a pre-ordained set list, it was repeatedly deviated from, and the results were an embarrassment of riches, including solo spots for both Rufus and Martha, several originals from the McGarrigle sisters, guest spots from Linda and Teddy Thompson, and some moving interpretations of standards from the whole family. Perhaps the most striking element of this wonderful show was to hear how such varying and distinctive voices (The McGarrigles are understated but eerily haunting, Martha is forthright and intense, Rufus powerful and emotive) work so well together.

The arrangements are stripped down, but also richly detailed, give or take a few bum notes. The set list was vast, and with many songs I had never heard before, but it's possible to indentify some of the highlights. The scene was set masterfully with the evocative 'Heart Like A Wheel', one of the McGarrigles earliest compositions. Some of the songs with Kate McGarrigle at the piano and singing lead were desolate and affecting, emotional but avoiding sentimentality. Martha performed a song which may well have been called 'You Bloody Motherf**king Arsehole', which was forceful, and certainly generated some laughs amongst the audience. The level of uncertainty was endearing rather than unprofessional - Rufus claiming 'this is a club show...except we're not in a club!'. All performers, including Lily Lankin, Rufus' cousin, joined in for a rousing rendition of 'St. James' Infirmary Blues'. Even more haunting was an entirely accapella reading of the spiritual 'Hard Times Come Again No More' in the encore, with all the performers achieving a wondrously selfless harmony. Rufus may not be a folk singer, but his adoption of the folk idiom during this show seemed entirely convincing, and the contrast between the traditional songs and his self-penned solo performances worked remarkably well.

Rufus' solo performances were predictably sublime, and he offered a generous range of material, including 'Beauty Mark' and the extraordinary 'Foolish Love' from his debut album. The latter remains one of his most exquisite songs, full of Sondheim-esque show tune extravagance, but bookended by a graceful and emotive slower section, in which he played most effectively with tempo and phrasing. From the 'Poses' album there was a lilting solo version of the title track, and a rich performance of 'One Man Guy' with Martha and special guest Teddy Thompson. From 'Want One', there was a touching, subtle rendition of 'Pretty Things' and a stirring, almost virtuosic 'Dinner At Eight'. In its place at the end of the album, this track had failed to make much impression on me - but it's sheer power made it one of the highlights of the show. Someone in the audience shouted out 'GENIUS!' as the last chord gradually died. It was hard to disagree.

Rufus even found space for a slightly indulgent cover of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' (he just about got away with it), before which he reminisced about going to see 'Annie' as a child. Apparently his mother had told him that 'sometimes, Rufus, they even let little boys play Annie!' although Kate could not remember the conversation. Most effective of all was the whole family joining in on a new song, 'Hometown Waltz' which sounded grand and impressive, possibly even the equal of the fantastic '14th Street' which was sadly left unplayed.

This was a playful show, and a celebration of a family with an extraordinary range of talent. It gave invaluable insight into the songs which shaped Rufus and Martha's childhood, and which no doubt inspired them to follow a musical course themselves. The music of Leonard Cohen, traditional country songs, the McGarrigles own work all combined fluidly with the more grandiose stylings of Rufus' work and the ragged intensity of Martha's singing. At the end, there were shouts amongst the audience for all sorts of songs, including 'Gay Messiah', one of the forthcoming 'Want Two' album's more controversial offerings. 'Please', said Rufus, 'this is a family show!' 'Rufus will not be playing Gay Messiah tonight' said Kate firmly, Rufus responding by saying he was saving it for Dublin. Instead, we got a rapturous 'Goodnight Sweetheart', made all the more entertaining by Rufus completely forgetting the words, replacing them with 'I feel like Judy Garland, except I'm stone cold sober...' Whilst this rambling and erratic element was a consistent presence of the gig, it'e effect was to make the performance more touching. This was how live music should be - generous, adaptable, honest and with the audience made to feel part of the celebration. In essence, a marvellous evening.

One major gripe with both shows - those bloody motherf**king arseholes who insist on walking in and out of the venue during the performance. Right - you've come to Manchester to see his first gig in the city for 12 years, or you've taken what could easily be your one and only chance to see the McGarrigle and Wainwright families on the same stage together and what do you do? Stay and watch the show and be entertained and inspired or get another vastly overpriced beer? It shouldn't really be a hard choice to make, and the latter option is vastly disrespectful to the artist, whether they notice you or not.

This is the first post I've made in a while - so there's plenty to catch up on. In fact, the last couple of weeks have delivered the most significant new albums of the year. I'm only just managing to keep up.

Laptop improvisor Fennesz returns with 'Venice', easily his most accessible album to date. I'm usually deeply suspicious of 'laptop improvisation', in that much of it can be obsessed with electronic sound purely for its own sake, often lacking melody or discernible structure. Fennesz has something extra. His previous album 'Endless Summer' demonstrated both his love for abrasive electronics, and for the classic sixties harmonies of the Beach Boys. It refracted delicate guitar strums through dreamy sound, and the result was complex and strangely affecting.
'Venice' is an even warmer record - remarkably distant from the confrontational white noise of earlier Fennesz material. It still places considerable demand on the listener - tiny fractured melodies are buried deep within the maternal hum. The overall sound, however, is pleasingly enveloping. The tracks seem to follow a discernible arc of progression, and the intelligent deployment of dynamics is more pronounced here than on 'Endless Summer'.
Disappointingly, its use of live instrumentation is considerably less inventive. The guitars come into play heavily in some of the later tracks, but they seem to be blandly distorted and uncharacteristically detached. David Sylvian's vocal is appropriately eerie, but does seem to break the carefully sustained mood.
Taken as a whole, 'Venice' is a calming, impressively effective mood piece that sees Fennesz developing his sound into something that is individual, challenging but also inviting and inclusive. Particularly admirable is Fennesz's ability to tease the listener with slight hints of melody and rhythm, whilst subsuming them entirely to the overall atmosphere, which assumes a strangely static superiority.

Another act making strides towards greater accessibility are Brooklyn's Animal Collective. I managed to pick up last year's 2CD reissue of their first two recordings on the Fat Cat label. I found them to be intermittently fascinating, but overly academic, and a little too preoccupied by midless noise. Still, there was something novel in their combination of twee pastoral psychedelia (strongly influenced, it would seem by Barrett-era Pink Floyd) and avant garde production techniques. 'Sung Tongs' is their fourth LP and it represents a giant step forward. It's still characterised by the twee melancholia and childlike nostalgia of their earlier material, but is bolstered by a more determined engagement with rhythm, harmony and melody. Avey Tare and Panda Bear have crafted something undeniably intellectual, occasionally pretentious - but also playful and enervated.
The opener 'Leaf House' is perhaps the best example, an insistent rush of strummed guitar, syncopated percussion and manipulated vocals. 'Who Could Win A Rabbit' is anarchic, with strings of verbose non-sequitors forced into uncomfortably tight phrases. Equally impressive is 'Winters Love', which is more subtle, but no less engaging. 'The Softest Voice' is endearingly fragile. What is most impressive about this album is how Animal Collective manage to make skeletal arrangements sound expansive. Most of these songs sound like manipulated campfire singalongs.
It's by no means perfect - some moments are too elusive and abstract, or simply too droney. The centerpiece of the album is the thirteen somewhat monotonous minutes of 'Visiting Friends', a track built on excessively minimal harmonic foundations. They do not support the track for its entire length. This is emphasised by the fact that it is succeeded by the refreshingly brief (less than a minute) and entirely charming 'College', where a welcome sense of humour returns.
At its finest, 'Sung Tongs' demonstrates considerable promise, and an ability to combine riotous invention with humour and melancholic introspection. Animal Collective are still occasionally handicapped by high-minded pretensions, but they are starting to shake them off in style.

I feel like I've waited for the new album from The Magnetic Fields for longer than I would usually wait for a 214 bus. At last, it has arrived, and, pleasingly, it offers more of the same. 'i' is another themed release, albeit much more succinct than the magnum opus '69 Love Songs'. All of these songs begin with the letter 'I', first-person ruminations on love and relationships in Stephin Merritt's trademark ironic style. Merritt has bemoaned the fact that many critics seem to find sincerity in his songs and take them at face value. Yet, the beauty of these songs, to these ears at least, is that they can work on both levels - as witty and ironic musings, or as genuine declarations. The concluding track 'It's Only Time', with a marriage proposal at its heart, could be as direct a song as Merritt has yet written.
At its best 'i' is characteristically marvellous. Merritt may have gone for an entirely acoustic approach here - there are no synths, but he has not lost his talent for penning for compact pop masterpieces. 'I Looked All Over Town' is forlorn and delightful, whilst 'I Don't Really Love You Anymore' is defiantly catchy. 'I Thought You Were My Boyfriend' somehow manages to sound like a synth pop tune, but this time without deploying any synths. The arrangement would appear to consist of electric sitars and ukelelees. It's jaunty chorus is irresistible.
Merritt's wry lyrical sense of humour is still on top form - most notably on 'I Wish I Had An Evil Twin', in which he imagines his malicious doppelganger carrying out every nasty act he cannot manage himself (because evil, naturally, isn't his style). All men would be scythed and tortured, but the pretty ones would of course be saved for Merritt. This simple, brilliant image perfectly encapsulates Merritt's gay pop sensibilities.
In its second half, 'i' does seem to run out of steam a little. Merritt's ironic style has always left him in danger of falling into writing mere genre exercises and some of the tracks here do suffer this fate. 'Infinitely Late at Night' is slinky and salacious, but amounts to nothing much more than a parody of lounge or bar jazz. 'Is This What They Used to Call Love' is worse - it's imitation of barroom piano balladry a little difficult to stomach. These genre parodies all seem to be sequenced towards the end of the album - which only serves to emphasise their shortcomings. At least they are offset by Merritt's unmatched dexterity with lyrical couplets, and his way with a winning melody. 'If There's Such A Thing As Love' and 'I Don't Believe You' are among his best songs. Ultimately, 'i' is another endearing and charming collection of songs from a wry, sly master.

Coming soon...reviews of Loretta Lynn, Morrissey and Hot Chip...

Magic and Accident

The final date of the Matthew Herbert Big Band tour at London's Barbican Centre was a genuine spectacle. The Barbican now seems to have successfully cornered a market in open-minded contemporary music programming - this is not music that you will hear regularly on any radio network, but it is of genuine significance, and can still pack out a substantial music hall. The Barbican still has the sense of being a slightly snooty, serious venue - where talking during the performance might result in a swift lynching, but maybe this is the most appropriate venue for Herbert's daring and intelligent melding of jazz and electronics.

Mind you, despite them inciting anger in other members of the audience, I didn't really blame the group in the row behind me for starting a conversation during support act Bugge Wessletoft. It's not that the music was terrible - in fact, it had the potential to be quite interesting. Unfortunately, Wessletoft's take on electronic jazz was mostly soporiphic, and only intermittently engaging. My lasting impression of this short set was that the five pieces were remarkably similar and extremely formulaic. The music initially sounded intriguing, but the use of loops, DJ work and laptop computers actually served to limit the possibilities of what the band could achieve. They were fixed in to a regular, hypnotic tempo. Subtle percussion work helped create a dense rhythmic base on which the musicians could and should have expanded. Yet, melodically and harmonically, the compositions were uninvolving, and the improvisation was strangely perfunctory. Reliant as they seemed to be on pre-ordained material, the band could really only play to the most fundamental of dynamic changes - a loud section followed by a quiet ruminative section, but with very little variation in tone or mood. It made me yearn for some more daring, more organic, perhaps even more confrontational musicianship.

Matthew Herbert's big band was something else entirely. This performance demonstrated convincingly that electronic interventions can invest fresh significance in old forms. The 'Goodbye Swingtime' album initially struck me as a little too subtle and restrained in its approach, but it has grown on me considerably as I have come to appreciate the intricacy of its arrangements. Live, any sense of restraint is quickly dispelled, as Herbert steps on stage, strikes a cup with a spoon, records it, and somehow transforms it into a clanking, invigoratingly dense rhythmic mesh. The band come on stage, and play from charts with controlled discipline and rigour. The overall sound is colossal, enveloping and striking.

The compositions succeed in maintaining great reverence for traditional big band forms (the spirit of Ellington, Gil Evans and Mingus breathes through this music) , but also manages to transform it into something creative and relevant to the here and now. Herbert takes a live feed from the band and samples it - often you can hear hints of melody being recycled and remodelled in real time. Unlike Wessletoft, everything he does fits in and makes real musical sense. The electronic interventions never come across as pretentious or excessive. Whilst the vivid detail of the live band impresses, it is Herbert's uncanny abilty to integrate with the unit that is so vital to its success. The actual amount of improvisation from the band is minimal, but this becomes unimportant when Herbert's considered and thoughtful manipulation of sound becomes the chief form of experimentation.

Herbert is a genuine master of the sampler - and has a great way of finding unique sounds. Tonight, he samples the band ceremoniously ripping up copies of the Daily Mail, or squeaking balloons, and works this into the texture of the music. With striking images on screens as well, the show is a visual treat. His politics are visceral and polemical, but much less vague than the flirtations of the Manic Street Preachers or even the idealism of Billy Bragg. They serve as the backdrop for his music, but they do not define it.

The best moments of the show come when vocalist (and Herbert's partner) Dani Siciliano performs. On her recordings, her voice sounds elegant and also slightly elusive. Live, she is both expressive and tightly controlled. She also looks fantastic. In one of the two encores, there is an awesome full big band arrangement of 'The Audience', the best track from Herbert's house album 'Bodily Functions'. Siciliano's voice is sampled, replayed and echoed. It is dazzling, and also indicative that Herbert sees his own music as having the potential to be explored in new and different ways. The strong vocal performances left me slightly disappointed that Jamie Liddell and Arto Lindsay, the other two vocalists on the 'Goodbye Swingtime' album could not put in an appearance. It would have been fascinating to see how the band might cope with the jerky, edgy rhythms of a track such as 'Fiction'.

Without these songs in the set, it remained a relatively brief performance, but it certainly left me wanting more. It ended with the band taking flash photographs as an integral part of the final composition, and encouraging audience members to do the same. This was a performance determined to explore new artistic possibilities, but while also creating and sustaining a sense of entertainment and involvement. The two need not be mutually exclusive. It left me convinced that Herbert is one of the most inventive and important producers and composers currently at work. His next project will apparently involve collecting samples of food - he is currently encouraging readers of his website (www.magicandaccident.com) to send in recordings of themselves blowing bubblegum. It sounds slightly ridiculous, but somehow it will surely end up sounding extraordinary. Tonight's show summed up both the magic and the accident of this music - the magic of the composition, and the accident of risky, daring electronic improvisation. In the end, it made perfect sense, and never sounded chaotic. My Dad summed it up perfectly: 'I guess he's some kind of genius'. I'll second that.