and now for something completely different ..
in case previous posts haven’t made it clear, i now live in the outer regions of the cotswolds. a very pleasant, quiet, and beautiful part of the world.
subsequently, my clubbing days are over, and the opportunity to depart from my sofa based slumber and catch an act in a live capacity dwindles by the year.
so, when i recently passed another anniversary of my time on this earth, and i was given a token to join my better half in catching daisy chapman performing live in my little hometown i was somewhat sceptical.
as it turned out, despite the grisly weather, the whole experience was rather special.
daisy chapman basically takes the trick that kt tunstall popularised a few years ago with her appearance on bbc2s later with jools holland. basically, via some floor based techno gadgets, kt looped various handclaps, rhythmic bashings, and footstomps making the final result of her guitar based pop songs sound rather grand and a lot more fleshed out than a normal stripped back solo show would.
well, daisy takes that idea, and applies it to her dark-n-twisted piano based songs.
building up from a basic premise of just using her vocal skills and a piano, the songs with the added layers of harmony rich loops morph into drama filled epics.
with several songs touching on the darker side of jealousy, an insight into the world of stalkers (with lyrics written from the point of view of the stalker that even manage to reference the bad seeds, leonard cohen, and the happy mondays!), and a well chosen handful of covers, the show proved to be very entertaining, and enjoyable.
of course, given that it’s all about a girl and a piano, there are the usual lazy reference points, tori amos, kate bush etc, but that doesn’t take away the fact that daisy has an excellent voice that can engage and connect with an audience, and when layered up and looped can result in rather spectacular results, added to which are some darkly delicious lyrics, making the whole experience rather enticing.
if you get a chance to catch her in your neck of the woods then i would definitely recommend you go along, however, don’t stray too far from the path on your way back home, as you just don’t know what lurks in those shadows.
more detail : here