Eclectic, crazy, moody, intense, personal, funny, faltering and finally formidable… the music cooperative Bloom was all this in yet another mini triumph for The Wardrobe Theatre, who seem hardwired to find and reveal risk-taking artists in this wonderfully creative city.
Tonight’s triptych of talent was the first of three such evenings planned at the venue, the next being in August followed by a third in September. Judging by the lack of empty seats, I have a strong suspicion we will be hearing a lot more from Bloom at this venue, it’s a perfect match. With young performers willing and able to take risks without taking themselves too seriously, their infectious joie de vivre went down very well with this audience.
After a fairly lengthy delay, a patient and good humoured house finally settled under the dimming lights to savour the first act, solo artist Wenonoah, who encouraged us in the online blurb to bring ‘curious ears’ to her performance. I think we all understood what she meant as she started to produce a trance-like simple keyboard accompaniment to her first song Run Run Run, a heartfelt plea to a female friend not to sink into the oblivion of a numbing hetero relationship. This was followed by starkly original songs about flesh (“islands of tits”) and emotional apology, before a final haunting and well-crafted piece about growing up female, Oh What a Beautiful Day – “we had fun, so much fun today.”
Wenonoah keeps her music stripped down to absolute basics, her lyrics, like personal diary entries, or intimate blogs, often sit on single notes or repeated simple chord beats. There is fragility to the presentation but it packs the resonance of Dory Previn’s early work, where words never flinched.
The stage then filled with the eccentrically dressed Dubi Dolczek band, which looked like it had made off with a trunk from Chaplin’s joke shop – adorned with cloth antlers, a fez decorated with a red feather duster, bead necklace festooned on a hooded robe etc. Band leader and singer/guitarist Dubi then led his five-piece on a wonderfully strange musical journey from swamps to outer space, calling briefly in the West Indies it seemed, to pick off a couple of reggae inspired numbers.
Dubi revel in controlled wackiness/theatricality – think Flying Concords meet Kurt Weil, or the Temperance Seven. Their instrumental playing included delicious rock steady lines to eccentric swoops from a digital Theremin-sounding thingy, to sharper stabbing runs on lead guitar. We were treated to a string of numbers from the album Dubi Dolczek and the Haunted Lagoon, including Circus of Spiders, A Million Flamingoes (but you), Blood Head Blues and Fishbone Jim. At times Dubi’s insouciant delivery could become a little too mumbled rather than ‘sung’, but then who cared when we were having such fun anyway?
Finally, onstage for a forty-minute set was the very talented Yoshimo Shigihara, leading the adventurous Yama Warashi band, in which members of Dubi Dolczek doubled as sax player and guitarist, to compliment bass and drums.
Yoshimo remained inventive throughout, sometimes adopting 6/8 and even 12/8 rhythms, Yoshimo could surprise with her multi-directional approach, somehow managing to weave traditional Japanese lines with African or straight western rock influences without losing sight of her own distinct identity. She used her voice like an additional instrument, sometimes using breath itself as a note to imprint new layers. There were shades of Björk and Laurie Anderson in her work, but what gave Yoshimo an edge was the conjuring of natural forces as inspiration for her pieces. The moon featured often, such as in the stunning finale Quagmire Moon, in which the moon is ‘annoyed’ with a smoking chimney, and Half Moon Bamboo, which celebrates the joy and power of spring. Yoshimo comes across as an enigmatic figure, modest, sensitive and imaginative but also potentially warrior-like, thumping elemental beats influenced by Japanese Taiko on her three drums. Her artistry brought her a huge cheer at the end of the evening.
The Bloom collective is not slick, or ego-based. Rather, it seems to be a group of musicians committed to finding ways to create new directions without losing sight of their sheer love of getting together to support each other to make that happen. Bloom Presents is their shop window, and like all good shop windows it can stop you in your tracks and feed you something new and unexpected. Yes, there were the odd raw moments, some hesitancy, the odd briefly forgotten lyric, but mostly this was music making at its playful and soulful best. ★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 25th July 2016
Further performances
27th Aug
Cloudshoes, Spindle Ensemble and Paddy Steer
18th Sept
Tezeta (Album launch), Run Logan Run and Alabaster dePlume
