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Review: Clogs and The Books at
The Shed, Hovingham
The Books at The Shed ©
Mary Thackray
CLOGS, please meet The Books; The Books, please meet Clogs.
by Charles Hutchinson
This American musical handshake was arranged by the British champions of the avant-garde, the Contemporary Music Network, and last week the two improvisational bands met up in Massachusetts for the first time, leading to new acoustic-electronic music to open and close a truly uplifting and adventurous night, played out to a Shed full house.
The stage was equally clogged up at the start when The Books' Dutch cellist, Paul De Jong, and Massachusetts guitarist Nick Zammuto swelled the four-piece ranks of Clogs, with barely enough room to accommodate the ubiquitous Shed door.
Led by Australian violinist and principal composer Padma Newsome and his fellow member of cult rock band The National, guitarist Bryce Dessner, The Clogs worked to an ever expanding, intricate template of neo-classical and post-rock instrumental music that best recalled the Penguin Café Orchestra.
Dessner's contemplative guitar, Rachael Elliott's entrancing bassoon and Thomas Kozumplik's chameleon percussion, steel drum and all, were compliant partners to Padmore's continuous journey between inner calm and inner turmoil.
Only once did he break into song, aptly finding a lighthouse haven in Lantern.
Where Clogs were seriously serious, The Books brought a big, beatific smile with their serendipitous fusion of folk guitar, classical cello, elliptical vocals, found sounds and home video images from thrift stores, newly cut up to look at the world with delicious absurdity and all the unpredictable spring of a bouncy castle.
Even sharper than Lemon Jelly, this is strange, beautiful music for when you are lost in space.
Wednesday 1 February 2006,
Yorkshire Evening Press
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