15 seconds. I guesstimate it was 15 seconds into a YouTube clip before I submitted for review. I made the hasty decision to review an artist completely unknown to me because my horizons need constant pushing. It’s probably a common problem these days that we get in our musical silos and get predictable. Also, the 15 seconds was brilliant.
I burned a precious evening based on 15 seconds of music; I’m betting that it’s worth it.
So what you get from this review is unvarnished. I’m pulling for this guy and whatever crew he has to be good. But I don’t know the songs, I’m going to google the titles later based on lyrics.
So after a slight detour with the opening act.
Avenoir
I’m not 100% sure he was singing. I’m sorry to say that, but I find it hard to believe there are so many dynamic changes going on in his voice while moving his body so little. Not much energy, probably a style choice that I’m just not getting. It made him look aloof and nervous.
Great beats though! Futuristic twists on 90s trunk rattling 808s as well as Bobby Womack-style cinema horns. There as a gamut run. If he was singing live the autotune was tasteful (to nonexistent), and his falsetto was striking. He’s got a great voice.
Simply standing on stage alone with the audience is admirable. Hopefully, the chance to be on stage during this tour allows him to shake whatever nerves and connect to the audience. Make the man presented on stage match the man who makes the music. That I’m interested in.
Chiiild
I’m told there will be no photography from our publication for this show so I’ll be extra descriptive. As the Bruce Dickinson says, “really explore the space”
I’m at the legendary Corona Theatre, where the shows are intimate and warm no matter the weather outside. It’s a bit of a mishmash of a venue. Kind of like an early underground subway station with hints of upturned pirate ship. The balconies are for looking at rather than looking out of, and the bartenders are attentive but exhausted.
Every person that makes their way past smells better than the last, gender regardless. They are young and dress as if they don’t care how they look, and it makes them look even better for it.
There is a stage in this venue, it is approximately five feet off the ground from where the peasants live. And it is appointed with modest lighting.
There is a Sistine chapel-esque ceiling fresco that postdates Michaelangeo’s work by a staggering 500-odd years.
Lastly, the walls are clothed in gold accented velvety red wallpaper and time-worn red drapery with those dangly tassel things you see every now and then in episodes of succession. I imagine, I don’t watch a lot of tv…
Feels like you’re there, doesn’t it?
The lights go down dark, and we get our first hint of modernity. A sampler and a keyboard bank on the left of the stage (our left, the band’s right). Or are we going back in time? It seems from the headlamps the band have descended into the mines.
A violent glitchy violin opens the program.
Punctuation of drums. Here he comes.
I was not expecting rock music. This is starting off more like an indie rock revival than the R&B I was imagining.
Back to life has a fantastic MGMT meets M83 meets Linkin Park show quality. Detuned synths and spacey guitars swirl around the syncopated punchy drums.
Chiiild says, “hip!” A lot, like, a tonne. It’s like he has hiccups, except his diaphragm is trying to reset the millennial whoop. He should probably stand on his head or get Lauren Maylon, his violin player, to scare him.
I’m about four songs in, and they have passed me by in a daze. I’m going to be eating up this guy’s Spotify shortly.
These songs are so smooth and so jagged at the same time. Warm and inviting but icy and bright at the same time. A Saturday afternoon by the canal. Meditative and hooky. A hot bath and a fuzzy sweater with hot chocolate. Walking confidently through your favourite part of your neighbourhood at the time of day when everything is just right.
Running out of Hallelujahs is intimate and thoughtful. Synthetic soul is an apt description. Chiiild asks us how many of us listen to synthetic soul, and enough people wooo I must assume it’s the genre they associate with.
I don’t want to rant. But this group is so good, and these songs so ingratiating, I can’t help but feel mad at the music industry. The wider music listener needs to know this exists! Imagine a sensitive soul singer fronting LCD Soundsystem with a freaking violinist!
If old guys like me knew this was available and accessible and didn’t have to dig and dig and dig to find it, the quality artists would have the bigger share of the pie they deserve.
I hope I packed a parachute is ecstatic, reminding me, oh yeah, PM Dawn had other songs didn’t they?
Sleepwalking is my favourite so far. So fun, so danceable! D&B meets D&D. With his oversized sweater, this man could easily be splashing paints across canvas in a gigantic loft as easily as he splashes the audience with vibes.
The closer you get to the stage, the more at home you feel in this crowd. The deeper into the set I get, the more I appreciate this guy has a catalogue.
Yonatan is insistent we get to a 12.
Bon Voyage gets us there! The stage busts open in orange and ruby red at the drop into the chorus. It’s magical, “like a tangerine sky,” for real.
Yonatan insisted we got to 12, I’m not sure everyone got there, but I got to a 24, so maybe the averages worked out. He’s giving us another song either way. What a generous guy.
Pirouette is his non-encore; he’s not a fan of encores, apparently. I get it; it’s a little silly that we do them.
If this indeed is the last song, how appropriate the line “How can we be strangers after tonight?” I’m certainly going to get to know Chiiild a lot better. I’ll spread the word to my friends who are stuck in their musical comfort zones too. If this is the last song.
Ohhh
It’s not; there’s more. It was almost perfect! Ughh… everyone is doing that dumb wave your hand side to side. And they have their phones up… that should get cut from the show. How are people still doing this?
Rating slipped from 8/10 to a 6/10. Would probably not need to see again but will enjoy the recordings!
Mike Rogers
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