I sat down not knowing quite what to expect from a gig at the Union Chapel in Highbury & Islington by Lau, a band I had only heard the name of before. I fiddled impatiently
with the free lapel badge they’d kindly left me and other members of the assembled
throng. The gig began with support act, State of the Union: a couple
of great acoustic guitar players who could not lift this enormous and
formerly sacred space. Pleasant, but essentially dull. So it was with some relief, my part at
least, when Lau hit the stage.
Lau are a three piece, largely Scottish, ensemble who play
acoustic instruments. Accordion player Martin Green was aided by a box of
computer tricks that made it hard for me to differentiate between a manipulated
delay effect and the possibility that he was sometimes using pre-recorded tapes. The
fiddle player Aidan O’Rourke deployed an array of effects pedals, but these
at least told me he was manipulating his own sound. The possible use of taped
sounds isn’t necessarily a sin of course, even for a band that regularly wins or gets nominated
for Folk Music awards, but the quantity of artificially generated musical effects is surely an issue, not least for a band whose website emphasises their
shared love of “hardcore traditional music”.
Having not heard a note by them before, it was perhaps inevitable that it would take a while for me to get their particular blend of what I can only call folk electronica (I may of course be blissfully unaware that this is the name of an established musical genre).
Having not heard a note by them before, it was perhaps inevitable that it would take a while for me to get their particular blend of what I can only call folk electronica (I may of course be blissfully unaware that this is the name of an established musical genre).
However there were points in the first half or more of their performance
that I got tired of the incessant endless climaxes of instrumentation generated
by Martin, Aidan, and Kris Drever, who was genuinely, I think, playing an acoustic
guitar. In the latter part of
the gig I began though to be converted to what some apparently call the republic of Lau-land
(sic). This was helped by the fact that we heard more of Kris Drever’s splendid
vocals as part of a perceptible shift in emphasis toward a more recognisably song
based performance.
In particular I noted “Torsa”, a tribute to a Scottish isle of that name
from where I think Aidan hails. This deployed Lau’s intense and layered "folk
electronica" to great effect, but, as it was held together with Kris’ vocals, it didn’t
lapse too much into the orgiastic noodling that had prefigured so far. A triumph,
in fact, of substance over form. I do wish they’d stand up though. How, I wondered, can you perform such uplifting and upbeat music from a sitting position? Perhaps
this is all some kind of non "band" schtick.
A cover of “Ghosts”, this one apparently by Niall Waterson
(I assume from the singing folk family), came straight afterwards. It also proved
a major highlight.
The hearty demand for an encore led to Lau deploying an
inspired back to basics approach as they brought on other musicians - State of
the Union and a couple of women from the apparently excellent band that performed
in the bar in the interval - for a more traditional sing song in the
form of a cover of “Goodnight Irene”. For partly personal reasons this brought
tears to my eyes, but also because Mr Drever and the band gave a wonderful
song such a splendid treatment. Less is sometimes very much more.
I am now wearing the badge.
