Music > Live Reviews

Ghostpoet

Norwich Arts Centre

15/11/17

Heavy red lights washed over the performers in a bloody hue, making them seem like gore-soaked profits choosing a sacrifice from the audience. Despite the morbid atmosphere, EERA was the perfect warm-up act. Haunting, trippy and melodic, they were reminiscent of Portishead’s trip-hop sound and Jeff Buckley’s ethereal vocals, shot through with a current of something a little different and unsettling. EERA (aka Anna Lena Bruland) was quietly assured and serene in a dark dress accompanied by large front pockets and black lipstick. Although she remained a light-hearted MC between songs, goading the audience about being so well-behaved, there was a spookiness to her and her band that set a perfect precedent for Ghostpoet’s unconventional sound and showmanship.

After a nearly hour-long wait, Ghostpoet (Obaro Ejimiwe) rocked up. He was dressed plainly in a black suit, black shoes, his black shirt unbuttoned to reveal a silver cross hung against his bare chest. Even the way he spoke was calm and unassuming. When he asked “How are we doing Norwich?” it felt strangely intimate, as if he were merely catching up with an old acquaintance.

Ejimiwe sang largely from his fourth and most recent album Dark Days and Canapes which arguably showcases his most polished sound to date with beautiful arhythmical beats and playful thematic jumps from the ludicrous to the cuttingly poignant.

The acoustics of the Norwich Arts Centre were as haunting as ever and added a touch of the gothic to Ghostpoet’s already dark and melancholic sound. As Ejimiwe addressed the themes of self-destruction and society unease, the reluctant wisdom of his lyrics rang with the brevity of a sermon. But the show was far from doom and gloom and at times Ghostpoet’s austere demeaner broke to reveal a joyous kid just arrived at band camp.

At the intersections between lyrics, he turned his back on the audience and faced the band, jabbing and stabbing at the air with fists and fingers like a possessed conductor. The music seemed to travel right through him and ripple the length his body, as if he wasn’t so much creating the music as channelling it like a lightning rod. A religious mania seemed to take hold of the band for the more vigorous songs such as Freakshow, Karoshi and Immigrant Boogie. The lead guitarist seemed to be attacking his instrument rather than playing it and Ejimiwe stabbed feverishly at effects buttons, body convulsing (somewhere between dad dancing and an exorcism).

His vocals were that delicious sweet spot between rapping, spoken word and singing. At times all three at once, at times none of each and perhaps easier to define by what it wasn’t rather than by what it was. He handed words out like gifts, let them drip from his lips like liquid gold. There was a sense that, even though he had done this hundreds of times before, nothing had lost its meaning and every syllable must be savoured.

Unfortunately, during some songs the gymnastic dextrousness of Ejimiwe’s lyrics was drowned beneath the noise of his band. And given that his music relies largely on ingenious word-play and allusions, it was a crying shame that his cleaving observations and self-deprecation was unintelligible for part of the performance.   

All in all, it was a fantastic phantasmal evening with trippy tunes, super support act and haunting headliner Ghostpoet who remains one of the most innovative and daring musicians of our times.

8/10