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| Photo not taken at gig |
As Jess is in the middle of the tour designed to promote the
new album, those present were unsurprisingly treated to a selection of exquisite
numbers from LANGA LANGA which gave the record an added dimension. The recent
review acknowledged that a live show would give Jess the opportunity to flavour
the songs with an informed introduction and this duly happened to enhance their
understanding.
Prior to Jess taking the spotlight, a pair of local singer-songwriters
were granted a slot to share their music with the audience. First up from
nearby Coventry was Stylusboy, although for this performance he was just plain
Steve Jones instead of a duet which has been his recording format. Steve has
described his sound online as lo-fi folk and this is understandable given his
gentle acoustic song delivery. Steve came across well and shared some of the
songs which can be found on his recent album HOSPITALITY FOR HOPE along with a
couple of amusing anecdotes to lighten the mood. He closed with the sentimental
‘Hold My Hand’ to reveal some
personal inspiration for his song writing.
In contrast to Steve, Chris Tye is a far more upbeat
performer with his folk style opening up to a jazz and soul influence in
places. Chris is a local Birmingham singer-songwriter and has raised eyebrows recently with a few support sets on the circuit. He has utilised the
Pledge model to fund his new album and early indications are THE PAPER GRENADE
is a release to look out for.
For her set Jess chose to mix material from her complete album
spectrum and delved into the back catalogue to open with ‘Due Grace Coming’ from 2010’s ALL SWELL and later share ‘Every Day a School Day’ originally found
on 2012’s AYE ME. However it was the current release which featured prominently
with the added background stories. We were wiser about the influences of her hometown
Norwich and its wider surroundings on ‘Movie
Scene’ and ‘Cavalier’ as well as
the chance encounters on her travels being the inspirations behind ‘Last Song’ and ‘Freckles in the Sun’. We also learnt of her experience when hitch hiking
in East Africa’s Rift Valley and how it became the basis for ‘The Missionary’. To conclude the set,
Jess spoke of how she sometimes altered the theme of songs and reworked ‘Modern World’ into a previously
unrecorded track called ‘Carelessness’.
This just left the encore number with it this evening being the slightly
surreal ‘Bat and Mouse Blues’. 