The Glasgow PodcART

Imagine yourself in a small, darkened room. There are 5 tables in the place and a lonely bartender polishes glasses beside a less than varied stock of old alcohol bottles. You might be sipping a whisky in candle light, you might be smoking a cigarette. You might be nursing a broken heart, or putting off a long walk home in the rain. One thing is for damn sure; Louise McVey & Cracks in the Concrete know your soul and will lull you back to life with some of the most inspiring music you’ll have heard in a while.

I was lucky enough to see the sound check and feel I owe a mention to how the mood was formed even before the audience arrived. There is something about this band; you cannot help but gaze at them, trying to see what exactly it is they’re doing. Perhaps it is their dapper appearance? Maybe it’s the way they communicate without rso much of a whisper? Whatever it is, they bring the whole dark blues package to the stage before even striking a chord.

Starting with a track called ‘Muse’, an unabashed blues number (I feel that the word “number” has never been more appropriate for a song). Looking at this smartly dressed group of musicians is impressive enough in all honesty and when it all kicks off you’re immediately consumed by the cadence in the room. The essence of the tragedy all the songs are so effective that you can’t help but allow your imagination to carve out little tales of bitterness and grief in your head.

The highlight of the evening for me was ‘Runaway Bride’ which features Graeme (guitars) using an FM radio sample on a loop and some quite genius interference whilst Jimmy (keyboards) tickles with a little melancholic melody. The whole song sounds like the seaside to me, during which I couldn’t help but release a sigh of longing for the little slice of peace that I was offered then by the music. For a few small seconds when the song ended the audience hung on the bands last note, only to be grabbed by the hand and taken from the white of the last song into the black of the next. “Circus” does’t move away from the dramatics, however has a few more indie moments than the rest of the set presented. This was a nice break away from the concentration of blues, but by no means was it out of place.

The song ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ contains the lyric “I caught you knocking at my cellar door”. That’s right, “cellar door”. Finally, someone has put those 2 words (cellar door) in a song! For those of you who don’t know why this excites me; it was suggested, by J R R Tolkien and others, that those 2 words put together are phonetically the most pleasant words to say in the English language. I am unsure as to how deliberate this is on the songwriters’ part, however it was a source of utter geek joy to me. The song itself was a testament to that theory, the arrangement of which fits together like a jigsaw; each part custom built to fit the others.

On the whole each and every track had its own smoky personality which transcends that of the band. For me, I cast my mind back to the summer I spent listening to ‘Mazzy Star’ over and over again. Such is Lousies heavenly voice that I did tap into that sorrowful, heartfelt emotion that comes from listening to the blues. They recreate a very specific setting with such ease, that it’s difficult to imagine anything else exists outside a room in which they play, it’s engulfing in its presence.

The guys are due to release an EP in November, and it’s one to watch out for in the dark nights that loom ahead. Please pay a visit to their MySpace in the mean time where you’ll find a few of the tracks they played on the night. If you missed them in 13^th Note you’ll catch them in the Flying Duck on 30^th Oct.

Nicola Blair