LAU
Lau are, to paraphrase a Guardian review, one of the most musically adventurous bands exploring the outer edges of folk
Back in 2012, I was blown away when I saw Lau for the first – and, before tonight, only – time at this very venue. Tonight, I have high expectations which weren’t entirely met.
As with the previous show, the trio of Kris Drever (vocals, guitar, keys) and Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle) and Martin Green (accordion, piano, electronics) play two forty five minute sets, with no support. Whilst I have managed to get myself trapped in a place where I can see little more than O’Rourke’s head, the first set is holds my attention throughout. Highlights include an entertaining description and example of working with Green’s electronics set-up - AKA Morag - and a superb take on Noltland Castle.
I manage to relocate to a place where I can see most of the stage for the second set, which consist of almost all of the newly released Midnight and Closedown LP. Whilst I can see more and the music is well constructed and well played, I find my attention wandering. Maybe that is because I am wholly unfamiliar with the songs and feeling jaded. Nobody else in the audience seems to feel the same way. Whatever, I am just not that gripped by it all. I am contemplating heading for the door when they play Toy Tigersand I am transfixed. What a song. Suddenly, the new material makes some kind of sense and I find myself swaying, lost in the music. Somehow, the music has the feel of King Creosote’s Astronaut Meets Appleman, mixed with Belle and Sebastian’s Girl In Peacetime Want To Dance and Michael Chapman.
The feeling doesn’t last to the end of the set but there are more revelatory moments and I am glad I stayed. Lau are, to paraphrase a Guardian review, one of the most musically adventurous bands exploring the outer edges of folk. As tonight showed, sometimes it works, sometimes (for me at least) it doesn’t but it is always questing, always brave and, more often than not, revelatory.
