Music / folk
Review: John Parish – Remembered for a while, St George’s, Bristol
There was no real chance she’d be there, of course, but at first the shade of PJ Harvey somehow hovered over this event almost as strongly as that of Nick Drake, whose music was to be performed. Three members of Automatic Dlamini – the 80s post-punk band that launched her – were at its core as well as Italian musician Enrico Gabrielli from her touring band. Once started however it was clearly John Parish’s gig as he flitted from guitar to drum kit via keyboards, glockenspiel and backing vocals, adding deft musical touches to the highly produced sound textures of each unannounced Nick Drake song.
Multi-instrumental main man John Parish
The late Nick Drake would have been 70 this year had he not died in 1974. His tragically short career produced three albums of poetic songs sung with fragile honesty against Joe Boyd’s imaginative and sensitive production. His music gained a devoted niche following while he lived – and it was interesting to note the numbers of grey-haired hippies across the packed St George’s stalls – but over time the recognition of Nick’s remarkable talents has grown. The task for John Parish, however, was to reconceive the music in the knowledge of Joe Boyd’s impeccable original arrangements, while three vocalists – Nadine Khouri, Aldous Harding and Huw Evans (aka H Hawkline) – took turns to interpret the words.
H Hawkline takes on Riverman
Of the three it was the diffident Huw that had the advantage of being most Drake-like as well as getting Riverman, probably the one of Nick’s songs that people might know. He took that responsibility sensibly, leaving the Lochrian String Quartet’s delivery of Rob Ellis’ shivering string arrangement to tell the story’s underlying sadness. Similarly, Time Has Told Me came across as almost spoken in Huw’s noticeably Welsh inflection. Nadine Houri gave an easy jazz flow to Chime of the City Clock, though her voice had to compete with an almost too busy string arrangement before the number resolved into a simple duet for glockenspiel and guitar that could have been a lost 60s spy theme. She fared much better with Pink Moon, John Parish strumming out the Joni Mitchell-style acoustic guitar while Nadine’s languid vocals stretched the song’s handful of whimsical lyrics nicely.
is needed now More than ever
Aldous Harding looking for the Northern Sky
The most startling performances came from New Zealand alt-folk singer Aldous Harding. Clad in bright red she brought the distracted air of someone who just woke from an odder dream and doesn’t yet trust this one. When she intoned ‘Never held emotion in the palm of my hand’ during an epic reading of Northern Sky you felt she had discovered that thought herself just before she sang it in her rather muffled alto octave before sparkling into a higher register. She shared crisp vocal duties with Huw on Three Hours, the song’s extended payout given a cracking prog pace and pulse by John’s keyboards and Jeremy Hogg’s guitar that suggested the early Pink Floyd and Can that would have been Nick Drake’s contemporaries.
Jeremy Hogg goes prog on guitar with Jack Ogbourne on drums
Three Hours was the cheekiest rewrite among generally faithful evocations of Nick Drake and Joe Boyd’s originals, which was probably a wise course for John Parish to take with such hallowed material. The three vocalists brought distinction to their parts without over-claiming the songs which was vital, though each revealed enough of themselves in the process and Aldous Harding, particularly, seemed like someone to watch out for when her next 4AD album is finally ready. Next week St George’s hosts Nick Smart’s jazz treatment, also with the Lochrian String Quartet, so an interesting compare and contrast exercise seems inevitable.
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