Homefires Brighton
Adem started the Homefires festival in london 4 years ago. This year he decided to take a sample of acts on the road and so Richard Swift, The Elysian Quartet, Nina Nastasia and Adem played at St Georges Church Brighton on Sunday 10th June 2007.
The Elysian Quartet
The Elysian Quartet are a progressive string quartet who have been remixed by Hot Chip, played the works of Gabriel Prokofiev – dance composer, soundtracked BBC drama and have now started to release their own compositions.
The quartet played atmospheric music, deep strings, scratching, occasional tapping on the back of the instruments to produce a rhythm and other noises which I had never before heard were played. It was certainly experimental and in the church with the great acoustics it played very well, although after 15 mins I think I had heard almost enough. Wonderfully, so had they. As they left I wondered how great they would sound playing as part of a band, and later on I found out.
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Richard Swift
I first saw Richard Swift supporting a My Morning Jacket who had already cancelled (long story) at The Concorde in Brighton this time last year. We weren’t sure whether to still go, but Richard made it well worth the trek. That time, and most others, he plays with a full band. He is a great musician, writes some wonderful music and has a couple of fantastic albums which you can buy below.
Tonight he kept things simple and played solo with some help from a friend on occasion. This friend also added to the proceedings by performing an occasional restrained dance. What more can you ask for? With the piano taking the lead tonight Richard reminded me of Rufus Wainwright meeting Richard Hawley and ‘enjoying’ the ghost of Jeff Buckley en route. He did bizzarely appear to thank the crowd sarcastically for clapping, but then that might just be his strange sense of humour…either way a great performance.
Song of National Freedom – live on Jools Holland
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Kisses for the Misses video
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Richard speaks
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Buy his releases:
Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia is a singer songwriter from New York by way of LA and Seattle. Her albums were all recorded by Steve Albini who has woked with artists as diverse as Nirvana, Pixies, Joanna Newsome and PJ Harvey.
She claimed to be very nervous, she too normally plays with a band apparently, but tonight it was just her and the guitar. The nerves certainly didn’t show in the songs though. As well as playing beautiful music Nina found the time to tell a couple of amusing anecdotes, one about how she forgets she’s met people and another about her lunatic driving skills which apparently resulted in her carrying another car down the street (!).
Bird of Cuzco live
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Adem with The Elysian Quartet
This is the fourth time I have seen folk artist and former Fridge member Adem playing Brighton. Each time I have seen him he’s done things slightly differently. Supporting Mum he played alone with guitar and harmonium (a gorgeous looking little piano, since destroyed sadly), I found myself a little bored. Supporting someone, it may have been Cerys Matthews, I can’t quite recall, I didn’t even bother to go inside the main room. However, when I saw him on the 0 degrees of separation tour, playing with a bunch of other musicians his music sounded bigger and better.
Tonight he played alongside earlier mentioned The Elysian Quartet and managed to better himself once again. Love and other planets was outstanding, sounding like early Coldplay (not always a bad thing). Like all the bands tonight, Adem was playing in a different format, but unlike the others, rather than just presenting normally very complete music in a minimal way Adem’s choice of medium made for an unmissable performance, surely one of his best ever. The Elysian Quarter came through on their early promise!
A wonderful evening – LP’s and handmade CD’s were purchased and I’ll be back to see all the artists in their regular set ups if they come here again. Adem suggested informally at the end of the night he might expand the Homefires tour next year to include a full day of events – don’t quote me on that, but it would be great if he could based on this evening!
Launch Yourself video
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Three songs, including Love and Other Planets
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