12:59pm Monday 25th May 2009
The Wilkommen Collective of local bands play music variously tagged as new-folk, lo-fi and alt-country.
Hamilton Yarns’ entire set was an extended sound-art piece telling the dark fairytale of a Bird Boy, illustrated with a slide show of disturbing woodcuts.
The musicians sat at instrument-laden desks, creating eerie and sorrowful percussive atmospheres, reciting the poem’s words in a monotone without looking out or engaging with the audience.
However, with audience members constantly walking in and out from the bar, it was difficult to maintain the intense atmosphere.
The Laish Quartet seem to be Brighton’s answer to Flight of the Conchords, with frontman Danny Green’s deadpan announcements and owlish introductions: “This is a song of weariness and disappointment. But there’ll be a moment for the ladies later when I take my jacket off, so look out for that.”
Cheerfully jingling Warmth And Humility was clearly influenced by Belle And Sebastian – but no other band would produce “a song of reflection about a drain blockage".
The five performers, singing as well as playing guitars, violin and melodica, all seemed delighted to be there, exuberantly pounding through I Am Enraged to the sweetly touching wedding tribute, Love Written Down.
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