Syd Arthur and Jane Weaver!!

The Quarterhouse, Folkestone
Wednesday 26th October 2017

I'd been waiting for this one for months, having fallen in love with the last two Jane Weaver albums. Ages ago I'd meant to contact Joel and suggest they try to organise some gigs together, but then forgotten to. This one happened accidentally due to a cancelled Jane Weaver gig some time ago that got rescheduled, and ended up coinciding with the start of Syd Arthur's UK tour.

Syd were on first, played all of the Apricity album except "Evolution" and "Plane Crash in Kansas", as well as "Hometown Blues" and "Garden of Time" from Sound Mirror, one monstrous new untitled piece to end and a crowd-pleasing "Ode to the Summer" encore. Magnificent. I was really impressed by some of the waveforms Raven is producing from his synth setup...they conjured up a particular type of intricate inner visuals (pixied-pointed Celtic cusps and bejewelled surfaces) which I associate with the most delicate acoustic work he's done with Liam, the same musical magic being produced through a different medium. Despite what you might think from the equipment on stage, they've not lost touch with that enchanted sylvan otherworldiness where their roots lie, the precious elfin thread back to the woodland glade where it all began is still intact. The phrase "mighty works of sonic architecture" came to mind. They're masters of what they do, and what that is just keeps getting bigger. And as always (despite claims afterwards of having had a bit of a struggle on stage) they make it seem effortless.

Here's that new piece a few days later in Southampton (starts after about a minute, cuts off suddenly unfortunately...)

And then Jane rocked it. She's a brilliant performer, totally captivating. She only played guitar one one piece ("Loops In The Secret Society"...during which they keyboard player also strapped on a guitar, a total of four guitars chugging away on a motorik groove). There were a couple of new songs I think, and a double encore including her masterpiece, "Argent". The only thing I missed from the records was her self-harmony vocalising but she can't be blamed for that. Her band were having a great time being technicians of Spaceship Jane. A nicely subtle lightshow too - psychedelic without being in any way retro.