Mark Eitzel/Anja Garbarek Purcell Room,London June 12th 2001 There are some curmudgeons who will tell you that the spirit of individualismin pop music died around the time that the first episode of Popstars was screened. Tuesday night at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown Festival on the South Bank offered a useful case for the defence. Here were three fiercely independent songwriters who ply their trade well away from the herd. First up was Cristina Dona, a young Italian whose two albums have made a fan out of David Byrne and a collaborator out of Wyatt. She played acoustic guitar and, accompanied by a percussionist not afraid to hit a lot of things very hard, there were moments of P.J. Harvey, moments of Beth Orton, and somemoments of magic. Of course, in introducing her music here, she will face thecustomary deep distrust against anyone who does not vocalise in the Queen's English. (Consider her MOR compatriot Eros Ramazzotti, who has sold 30 million albums worldwide, including, oh, at least a few dozen in Britain). But this summer Dona is supporting Patti Smith on Italian dates and you feel sure she will give the grand old dame of punk a run for her money. Anja Garbarek (daughter of the Nordic saxophonist) writes music that can safely be filed under uncategorisable. But if pressed, you might say her intricate chamber rock lies somewhere between Bjork and late Talk Talk. Mark Hollis of that band, in fact, helped fashion the intimate soundworld of her last album, Smiling and Waving (to which Wyatt contributes). Her six-piece band, in sombre evening wear, contrasted violin, viola, double bass and sax with beats and electronica as they re-created much of the record. Garbarek's enigmatic tunes, sung in her little-girl-lost voice, may prove too fragile for the rough and tumble of pop radio, but, as with Portishead nearly a decade ago,there is something strange and lovely going on here. Finally it was back to the more prosaic territory of bloke-with-acoustic-guitar. But since that bloke was Mark Eitzel, once leader of American Music Club, this wasn't a bad place to be. American Music Club were a critically acclaimed, commercially doomed cause celebre who hit the buffers in the mid-Nineties. The solo career of the San Francisco-based Eitzel has often been a trawl through gloom, but this show was full of mordant wit too. "I know the only costume prize I'll win is if I go as the Invisible Man," he sings on Shine, from Invisible Man, a new album, which, by Eitzel standards, has adistinctly upbeat feel. The critical view has been that the songwriter did his best work a decade ago with American Music Club, but the new album, and this rapturously received set, suggest it might be time for a rethink. Review by John Bungey for The Times 15th June 2001 Not Waving But Drowning I suppose it's only natural that the daughter of the Norwegian jazz virtuoso, Jan Garbarek, should tread an experimental path. Her second album Balloon Mood was an eerily compelling collection of songs set against a backdrop of samples, syncopated rhythms and staccato string arrangements. But with this year's Smiling and Waving the singer has tried to position herself in the realms of avant-garde jazz. It is these songs that she has chosen to perform at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown and, when played live, they just don't come together. All glammed up in a Doris Day-meets-Cherie Blair polka dot dress, Garbarek stands demurely centre stage, her cherubic face creased earnestly. Her band have dressed up for the occasion too, though possibly not by choice judging by their grumpy demeanours. Garbarek's determination to throw in every possible embellishment, bar the kitchen sink, results in an assault-course of sound that proves hard to navigate. Clarinets, saxophones, guitars and strings are randomly juxtaposed with sampled beats, live drums and all manner of percussive noodling. Then there is Garbarek herself whose gentle yet plaintive voice sounds like a small child who has been shut in an even smaller cupboard. "Big Mouth", a song that begins with Garbarek tunelessly squealing "I've got a very big mouth, a very big mouth with a lot of room for different things" against a discordant double bass, is excruciating and prompts an outbreak of nervous titters in the audience. "The Gown", a song in which there is at least a discernible melody, is mildly better, though the enduring feeling is one of a performer who is trying too hard. In contrast, Mark Eitzel performs the simplest of sets with only an acoustic guitar for company. Even after fifteen years churning out song after anguished song, the former American Music Club frontman still has no faith in himself. "I asked the lighting guy to blind me so that I couldn't see who was walking out," he says. Drawing largely upon songs from his latest album The Invisible Man, self-loathing seeps from nearly every song. "Without You", "Anything" and "Shine" are unassailably bleak, each brimming with introspection and isolation. The mood is lightened by some bizarrely entertaining anecdotes in between songs, too rambling to repeat here. The same skewed humour leaks into "Johnny Mathis' Feet" and the excellent "Christian Science Reading Room", a mischievous number about Eitzel and his cat getting stoned and becoming Christian Scientists. It's nights like this that show Eitzel to be one of the most talented and articulate songwriters of his time. If only he knew it Reviewed by Fiona Sturges for The Independent June 14th 2001 Return to Homepage Here |