end of Syd Arthur UK tour

3rd November 2016
Patterns, Brighton

This was the last night of their UK headline tour promoting the recently released Apricity album, and I got a last minute lift with Jamie Dams (partner of drummer Josh, but also creator of such fabulous music as this), had a fascinating conversation about consciousness all the way to Brighton. Support came from a pretty competent local prog band called Man Ray Sky. Syd played the played whole album minus "Plane Crash In Kansas", plus the "big" tracks from Sound Mirror and a bit of On An On. The previous time I'd seen them, in London, Raven had brought out his mandolin for part of the mighty "Chariots" → "Singularity" but this time no acoustic instruments were to be seen, he opting to instead shred wholly on his tenor (four-string) electric guitar and paint soundwashes with his analogue synth setup. The vocals were slightly muffled but the overall mix wasn't too bad. My highlight moment was probably the jam at the end of "Garden of Time" where once again I was (to quote Paul Weller from a recent MOJO piece) left standing, drop-jawed, wondering "How the f*** are they doing that?". Jamie and Josh stayed in Brighton, so I got a lift back to Canterbury with the rest of the band, helped them unload the van at Bramble Hall HQ near Boughton.