Black Twigs

"We're going to play two sets, so I hope you stick around and dress accordingly", said Mike Gangloff, opening proceedings.

Another splendid gig from the Black Twig Pickers at Brighton's Prince Albert last night, three parts wondrous to one part bonkers. It is great to hear a folk tradition coming to life in so unforced and unacademic a way, with their own songs blending seamlessly with the traditional material they play.

I've raved about this bunch before. A highlight for me last night was 'The River's Flooded And Robin's Drowned', the plot of which is delivered pretty succinctly by the title: Robin gets stuck trying to drive across a flooded bridge but, after being rescued, tries to go back to his car...to recover his gun. An American parable that could have been written last week, 50 or 100 years ago, give or take a few engines.

Banjo, fiddle, washboard, shared mics, hollerin', Appalachian dancing, fiddlesticks. What more do you want?

Roy Harper at the Royal Festival Hall

The encore was inevitable, but a triumph of confidently realised expectation. 'When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease' soared up to the high ceiling of the Festival Hall, buoyed by strings and brass, Roy Harper's voice as clear and true as ever. 

He's 72 now and, compared with some septuagenarian singing models, is neither the grizzled old trouper of the Never Ending Tour nor the preternaturally sprightly phenomenon that is, sincerely, L. Cohen. Roy can definitely do the business, but lacks match practice. There were occasional stumbles with lyrics and chords from more recent songs, and a couple he chose to stop and start again. But when he hits his stride - which is mostly - he can be awesome.

He's promoting a new album, Man & Myth, both sprawling and inspired, a glorious return to the sound of his seventies heyday. I last saw him live in 1975 and there is a lot of common ground with the fire and panache of the HQ album he was then touring, and with its lyrical concerns. I hadn't been aware that there was a gap in my auditory life that a fifteen minute epic about the myth of Orpheus would fill, but 'Heaven Is Here' has firmly put me right. And, in concert, that song's complex challenge is confidently dispatched to the boundary before the interval.

The show is opened by American singer-songwriter Jonathan Wilson, who co-produced the album and who goes on to accompany Harper for the rest of the evening on guitar, mandolin, banjo and percussion. The remainder of the accompaniment comes from a five-piece string section and three brass players, evoking memories of the always striking arrangements David Bedford provided for Roy's records back in the day. Bedford died a couple of years ago and Harper is clearly missing him - though he also goes out of his way rightly to praise Fiona Brice for her work on the new album's songs.

Those songs form the backbone of the set, which otherwise comprises older Harper classics: 'Highway Blues' from 1973's Lifemask is the opener, 'to exercise my tonsils' he says; then Stormcock's 'Me And My Woman' at the close, introduced, entirely accurately, as 'something immense'. In between we've had his lovely take on Dylan's 'Girl From The North Country' as well as a shimmering 'Hallucinating Light'.

A great record, a lovely show. What next? Roy is suitably enigmatic as he thanks the crowd for coming: 'I hope to see you again. But it's in the balance.' He holds his hands in front of him, miming settling scales, before dramatically lurching one hand downwards. You can read that two ways, of course. Let's see.

Tunng at the Old Market, Hove

Bands and booking agents really ought to do some more prior consultation. The vagaries of their tour schedules mean that I'm now into a burst of three gigs in three days, to make sure I don't miss anything vital. Roy Harper at the Royal Festival Hall this evening and the Black Twig Pickers back in Brighton tomorrow, with the bar set encouragingly high by an excellent set from Tunng in Hove last night.

It's tricky to describe them to anyone who doesn't know the music. I've seen other reviewers resorting to labels like folktronica, future folk or even pastoral gothic, none of which says an awful lot to me. The folk descriptor seems primarily to come from the fact that front man Mike Lindsay plays an acoustic guitar with his fingers, but I guess there is also a nice undercurrent of lyrical weirdness which taps into some aspects of the English folk tradition, by way of the likes of Robyn Hitchcock.

I first saw them on the same bill as Bob Dylan at the Hop Farm and they certainly provided the brightest set of that particular day for me. With a total of six albums now under their belts (don't miss the BBC sessions set which includes a great hook-up with Tinariwen), there's a wealth of fascinating stuff to dig into.

They're driven along by a stomping rhythm section and the combination of two guitars and three fine voices in the front line means there is always a lot going on, even before you start adding in things like melodica and laptop oddments. At one point last night, Lindsay and Ashley Bates ostentatiously swapped guitars before the former wigged out splendidly with a succession of foot-up-on-the-monitor rockist tropes, before delivering his own verdict: 'we're just a folk band, really'.

On earlier albums there were rather more quirky samples and beats taking things in unexpected directions. I've been finding their most recent album, Turbines, rather understated and more conventional than its predecessors. But the selections from it that they played last night seemed to come to life better live and fitted in well alongside the older songs. 

This was the last night of their tour and in amongst the encores there were flowers and a bottle of Laphroaig for the female vocalist who did very well in taking Becky Jacobs' place on these dates - and whose name I'm afraid I missed.

A lot of warmth, a lot of fun and a splendid version of 'Bullets' from 2007's Good Arrows to round things off. Still as good a place as any for new listeners to get a sense of what this bunch are about, I'd say:

We're catching bullets in our teeth

And though it's easy when you know how it's done

They split the secret up six ways before they gave it to us just before dawn

And now we don't remember.

Whatever else the song might be about, I think that's a pretty fine metaphor for the sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, 'don't look now but we're levitating' dynamics of playing in a band that can aspire to greatness.

A fair few rounds were successfully captured last night, I'd say.

Gum at the Green Door Store - take 2

Gum were back at Brighton's Green Door Store yesterday, just over a year since I last saw them play there. They've come on a lot, helped, no doubt, by the focus and concentration of their recent European tour with Ringo Deathstarr. 

New drummer Nick adds power and invention to a more cohesive backline, with Jess's bass pushing more strongly than before. Chris and Grant's guitars swirl and storm but never wholly bury some pretty melodies.

There's more confidence and a sense of fun about the whole thing - a compelling swagger, of a suitably shoegazey sort...

I know I could be biased but they're on fine form and well worth seeking out, as a bouncing and appreciative audience last night would confirm. A new single should be out any day now and an album is on the way.

Ahab: a recommendation

Regular readers may recall me saying good things about the London-based alt-country outfit Ahab. I saw them play at Shoreham's Ropetackle Centre on Wednesday and picked up a copy of their new album, Beautiful Hell. They're a lot of fun live and the CD is pretty impressive too. Do take the opportunity to see and hear them if you can.

I first came across them up in Stornoway at the Hebridean Celtic Festival in 2011, when I described them as…

a sort of anglo-Americana band from Dalston, rather reminiscent (for listeners of a certain age) of Brinsley Schwarz, but with rather better vocals - four singers in the frontline, with strong harmonies. So maybe the comparison should be Fleet Foxes con cojones - or, if that's unfair, with much more onstage energy and attack. 

The band had initially been formed by singer-songwriter-guitarists Dave Burn and Callum Anderson, who had then been joined by Luke Price and Seebs Llewellyn, expanding the harmonies and adding mandolin and bass to a democratic, instrument-swapping front line. By mid-2011 they had a couple of EPs out with that line-up plus different drummers, No King and KMVT. Over the last couple of years I've seen them play in Brighton twice and they've released two more CDs: Wit's End, which essentially collected the earlier EPs, and the self-explanatory Live In London.

The live album was convincing and showed how they'd built an attractive repertoire, as well as a good line in off-the-wall, often very funny, stage chat. They were used to each others' playing and managed to maintain an endearing combination of modesty and musical swagger.

That history means that Beautiful Hell is in some ways their first proper album. But it also has the usual challenges of what is normally seen as a band's 'difficult' second release: coming up all at once with a strong new set of songs that will be seen to go beyond the tried, tested and familiar ones which were written over a period of years and have become the backbone of a well-honed live set.

Put like that, it is a bit tricky, isn't it? And Ahab have had the additional challenge of losing founder member Callum in the summer. He's recently become a father and, while he has co-writing credits for all the songs on the new album, he doesn't play on it and is missing from the current tour. It's not clear whether he will return at some point.

Anyway, they seem to be handling things very successfully.

Seebs has moved seamlessly to cover the trademark 12-string lead lines which had previously often been played by Callum, while Oscar Lisshagen takes over the bass on all but one song, where he adds keyboards. There still is some instument swapping between songs, but it feels more of a conventional set-up somehow, with more of a gap between frontline and rhythm section than there was. And, while the three-part harmonies remain a strong and distinctive selling point, it's a bit of a shame to have lost the possibility of four distinctive vocalists singing together.

Enough carping. They were in fine and varied voice on Wednesday, with a real sense of energy and attack throughout the show. A somewhat staid Shoreham audience was quieter than they would have liked - a bit of repartee and interchange clearly helps to spur them on. And, that said, the crowd's reaction was very positive and there was an encouraging rush to the merch table at the end, which I was happy to join. 

I'm enjoying the copy of the album I bought. There's a good range of songs and sounds on that, too, with some nice harmonica in places, as well as keyboards. I'm not convinced by the whistling on 'Hey There Sunshine', but I'm not sure I ever have been convinced by whistling - and I'm not going to start carping again...

Listen and enjoy.