Underground

Down and down they go. Down escalators and stairs. Little ants marching along brightly lit tunnels. Posters and advertisements accompany them every step of the way. They spill out onto the congested platform. Toes tapping. They glance at watches every other second. A disembodied voice shrieks over the Tannoy. The impatient throng murmurs. Everyone is late. Everyone is always late. The tracks rattle. Celestial lights shoot out from the darkness. The crowd pushes dangerously behind the thick yellow line. Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap. Mind the bloody Gap. The enclosed cave fills with a thunderous roar. A gust of chilly air hits them smack in the face. The train grinds to a screeching halt. Whoosh. The doors open. Passengers fall out on top of the waiting queues. They shove back in return. They elbow. They squeeze themselves in, filling every last available space. An orgy of intertwined contortionists. The doors close. Bang. They open again. “Please keep clear from the doors. Keep clear from the doors please. ” Closed. An over packed suitcase bursting at the zipper. The horizontal rocket shoots off into the all-consuming shadows. A chorus of newspapers rustle. The Evening Standard. The Metro. The Guardian. Books, phones, iPods are pulled out from jacket pockets. Minds disengaged from bodies that loll from side to side. The salesman next to the Sheikh. The chic yuppie back-to-back with the Sports Direct clad yob. A deranged metallic clanging cries out from beneath them. Eyes peer covertly from behind books to peruse rainbow coloured maps. If eyes meet, they are averted at cosmic speeds. That is the rule. Coughs. Sneezes. Yawns. They inhale a cocktail of distilled germs. The depleting air is suffused with the aromas of a thousand take-away lunches. Greggs. McDonald’s. Nando’s. Wok-in-a-Box. M&S and Pret A Manger for the more refined. Franchise coffee is on the breath of everyone. No one dare breathe. No one can escape the monstrous melting pot moving en masse.

Should I Tell You?

Should I tell you? Should I tell you that Jim is cheating on you? Or do you know? Are you one of these modern couples that are OK with friends with benefits? And if I told you and that were true, would you think me prudish? Wouldn't it be best to tell you anyway, just in case?

But how do I tell you? Do I send you an anonymous tip-off? Do I tell one of your girlfriends so that they can break the news to you? Or do I come out with it matter-of-factly? What is the protocol in these situations? Do I invite myself over on the grounds that I have important news you need to know? But then how can I make sure Jim isn’t going to be there? Should I ask to meet you over a coffee or a walk in the park perhaps? Or is it best to avoid public places in these circumstances? Would you think it unusual or even forward of me to ask you over to my place alone? Would you decline? And if you did say yes at what part of the conversation do I bring up Jim’s cheating? Do I need to make chit chat when you come in? Or should I look serious from the start? Is this a sofa or a kitchen-table conversation? Do I serve tea? Why am I thinking about sofas and tea?

Once we are seated do I just say that I was out last weekend and saw Jim with another woman? How much more information should I reveal? Should I mention that she was blonde and beautiful? Would you want to hear about the way they kissed, the way they felt each other up? Or would that be too much? Do I tell you that I followed them from club to club, watched as they got drunker and drunker and more and more intimate? And when they finally stumbled out onto the cold damp streets just as dawn was breaking and jumped into a cab together, do I tell you that I trailed them like some seedy P.I. until they pulled up outside a hotel? Would you think my actions disturbing, excessive? Would you ask why I didn’t intervene? Why I didn’t phone you up immediately? Why I let it wait five whole days? Would you never want to speak to me again?

Or would you move into my arms and let me comfort you? Would you let me stroke your hair and whisper in your ear that everything would be OK? Do I tell you that you deserve better than Jim? Would you realise that I am better?

Written Photograph

Wisps of chestnut hair fall lightly on his unruffled forehead. Earlobes protrude from underneath his fashionably unkempt hair. Dangling from these fleshy gewgaws is a pair of earphones; the black jelly-wire frames the lower half of his face. He doesn’t react at all to the music escaping from the beetle-like speakers in his ears. Whatever he is listening to serves less as entertainment and more as a means to drown out the café babble around him so he can focus on the paperback in his delicate hands. In fact his entire willowy body seems to arch over the fantasy novel in attempt to enter the magical fiefdom contained within. He bites his tender pink lips - in all probability still unkissed - and squints in concentration as his brown as ale eyes trail the words on the page. An impish asymmetrical grin appears on his face for a fleeting second but his expression contorts back into concentration almost instantaneously.

He is cherub faced if such a cherub were amid the whirlpool of puberty. Blotches of scarlet appear around his oily temples and chin where acne molehills seem ready to erupt at any second. A faint shadow is busily rooting itself above the upper lip, destined to grow darker and denser in the coming years.

Despite it being a few sizes too big, he wears his t-shirt with apparent honour. This black garment demonstrates his allegiance to some Scandinavian metal band or other. It also makes his skin appear paler and pastier. His gawky frame hangs loosely from his shoulders as a bathrobe does from a hanger. His legs stretch out awkwardly underneath the table, right foot now tapping away idly. A hand leaves the book and reflexively flicks away the silky strands on his brow. He shifts himself into a more comfortable position, angling his body and resting his head on his hand.

Camels & Needles

Lately I've been pondering
     camels and needles
Because lately you've been squandering
     the wealth of a king
So to cure my insecurity
     I hang out in cathedrals
That dwarf your stately villas
     and shroud you in sin

For ye have received your consolation
I sure as hell need mine
Is it too much to ask
     for a soul to console?
If the good life is yours
     can't eternity be mine?

But for all my hope in balance
I know you'll tip the scales
Typical of you to not be satisfied
With the just forever flames

And while your empire rises

Mine seems further reduced
So I'll take all I can get
Even if all I can get
   is a single beatitude

No Man's Man

This no man's man
     whose neither here nor there
This gawky man-child
     who is oh so debonair

This working-class Tommy
     in middle-class skin
This staunch moralist
     abnormally attracted to sin

This proud as punch Piscean
     who sneers the horoscope
This structured traditionalist
     who subscribes to post-modernist tropes

This liberal conservative
This corporeal ghost
This humble horn blower
This ill-mannered host

This Mediterranean-Saxon
This carpenter’s son
This jack of some trades
This master of none

This loyal adulterer
This cosmetic-less clown
This industrious idler
This verbal noun

This prude
This pervert
This pleb
This ponce
This pragmatic dreamer
This pacifist who taunts

If only a Knight could slay half this beast
Then maybe the remaining half could at last be complete

Purpose

This hunk of semi-sentient bone, blood and flesh
Suffused with guilt, drives, love, and regrets
Over a quarter century has still yet to find
A purpose to which it feels naturally inclined

Thus ensues much whining and whinging
Much to the delight of friends who are inwardly cringing
“Oh do shut up you miserable man”
Their lips seem to mouth from behind their hands

But the indulgence fiend needs his fix
It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair [he insists]
And so on goes the mantra for this pope of mope
Who with the garden-variety never seems to cope

He can never accept the phrase, “That’s life”
Or all the humdrumness of a nine-to-five
There has to be something more worthwhile
Something that will culminate in a satisfied mind

Tall are the ambitions
High are the goals to achieve
So much so that the sweet shelf seems perpetually out of reach
Which results in too much time idly spent looking at the feet

Because to look up into the sky is to realise
What good is a purpose in context with the cosmic playsite
- Where stars crash, burn and collide
- Where suns dwindle, die, and are resurrected to ten times their original size
- Where ice fountains erupt on Enceladus
- And where superior minds perhaps do slowly and surely draw their plans against us

And beyond the power of modern man’s telescopes
This whatever-it-is continues to diminish in significance and scope
The infinite canvas overwhelms our tiny boat
The waves crash down hard and swallow us whole
And with just a playful puff from the almighty gods
This speck of dust here today, could tomorrow be gone
So that all the whining and whinging of this twenty something year old
Amounts to, well ... not very much at all

Perhaps the trivial pursuit of purposefulness
Need not stem from a constant sense of incompetence

So best banish the black cat-o’-nine-tails
And let an effervescent air of positivity prevail
From here on in it’s a strict diet of good vibrations,
Karma-lite and transcendental meditation
Here begins the quest for inner peace
That will cure the heart from Western man’s disease

Still …
a purpose would be nice
and maybe, just maybe,
a rich man’s life

The Bedroom

Candles flicker against your bedroom walls
You love the mood it makes once the curtain's drawn
I hear your records play through my wall next door
I lay like you across the floor

Can you please call out
I am alone like you, alone with nothing to do
And I promise, I won’t make a sound
Just want to lie with you
In your bedroom

Rain falls hard on those Friday nights
I’m bathed in orange under the street lamp light
From down here I see your window sill
From down here I watch you still

Can you please look down?
I am out here for you, soaked to the bone for you
I need you to warm up my soul
Take me up there
To your bedroom

The Jar marked Mercy

The jar marked Mercy is empty
It sits conspicuously on her shelf
Despite all the bric-a-brac and crockery
And the mugs stained with coffee
His eyes don’t take in much else

There still is Grace aplenty
And half a decanter of Doubt
The demijohn of Muse
She’s yet to consume
As her imagination has never run out

A carafe of Lust she keeps by the fire
Deep scarlet, fruity and smooth
Every evening she pours
A glass, or four
To help get them both in the mood

But it’s the empty jar of Mercy that concerns him
As from out the cupboard a gift wrapped in ribbon she pulls
It’s their anniversary today
And somehow he now needs to explain
His bottle of Forget was full

A litte tête-à-tête

There’s something tearing away at the back of my mind, I can hear the whispers. You’re a failure, they say. You’re wasting life. Tug my hair as I might, twist and turn at night, I can’t let go of the thought, What if they’re right? Minutes ticking, time for rest diminishing. I flee the bed chambers to enter the examination room; a little man to man, a little tête-à-tête. Let’s examine the face: the hollow circles around the eyes, the gray blue hue that has captured the imagination of many a fair admirer, but now not so bright, now a little cold, stars in the eyes have died. There the lips that can break into that smile, the smile that can melt hearts and change minds. Better than any theatre prop or beautician’s talent, when that smile breaks out the audience is drawn into the fiction of happy endings or beginnings or whatever else it is that they imagine. For the words never really leave the mouth, but somehow that smile seems to leave no one in doubt. That is the man, the babble rises, who is content beyond his heart’s desire, yet never proud, always good natured. But it was little more than white lies to clothe himself from prying eyes. Note the tilt of the head, the cheeks slightly sallow, the teeth once so white now a little yellow due to increase in caffeine that has become borderline addiction, but to withdraw is to fall foul of symptoms that knock the inner forehead without invitation. The hair is still fine, healthy and full despite all the tugging and sharp painful pulls that are administered to try awakening the senses from defeatist realist adherence. Signs of acne still appear from day to day, yet they promised this would stop back around 2008 when teenhood doors closed and the twenties arrived in a flurry of more responsibilities and a stronger dose of life. That’s not to say that life hasn’t been grand, there are traces in this face of a rare beautiful love, the touch of gentle woman’s hand that has cared for this face and given more to it than all of those petty thwarted plans. But he feels he has let her down once too many, no longer quite sure he deserves to be around. You can read all this in the forehead’s lines and that cheerless smile he only reveals during these nocturnal examination times. So what is there left to say of this well-familiar face that it has not already heard a thousand times before? Not much really, you might as well give up trying to soothe and calm that mind. Think of it as the aspiring artist within to self-torment inclined. So scrub that face hard and scrub it clean, rest that head on the pillow that nurtured all those adolescent dreams, a few deep breaths (and a couple of sighs), then no more whispers, not at least until the following night.

Just a thought

You say I have no faith
But then you have no reason
So I guess, in a way
We are both rather even

The day I got referred to in the letters section of the paper ...

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110806/letters/Room-where-to-stand-and-cheer-in-gigs.378958

Tardy Town {a glimpse}

The mysterious circumstances pertaining to the town christened Tardy, and all that followed.

At precisely 3 o’clock in the dead of a chilly Thursday night in December, the St. Sanctus church bell sounded across the little town of Tardy. Precisely seven people in the town were still awake that night and thus were the few who heard the bell’s clangourous hollow din reverberating from its mount in the Church tower.

Raymond Rechid was one of the seven not yet claimed by the realm of sleep, and truth be told Raymond had no choice but to hear the bell’s clamour, as he was Tardy town’s staunch bell-ringer.

While the mass of Tardy town’s inhabitants were tucked soundly in bed, Raymond would nightly make his way to the Church - a short two streets walk from his unintended bachelor abode - turn the bulky rusting key in the old wooden Church tower door, and there he would carry-out his appointed duty of the ringing of the bell. As St. Sanctus’ sole subservient, Raymond was also appointed to be dreary daily altar server, lonesome aisle sweeper, makeshift pallbearer and unavoidable-if-undesired gravedigger.

In comparison to these humdrum chores, he simply relished ringing the town bell; the thud of the clapper against the bell’s inner rim, the pouring of sound all around him filling the tower to its brim, the quivering sensation eddying down the bell’s rope through his hands.

He knew the bell so intimately that with just the slightest flick of the wrist he could direct the clapper to the bell’s sweetest spots, allowing for differing degrees in the sound’s tonality and texture to resonate and reverberate across the town. For those two or three minutes each night Raymond Rechid ceased to be a sad thirty-six year old bachelor whose only purpose in life was to perform St. Sanctus church’s dirty work. He transformed into a conjurer of sound; a straight-backed and not so socially shunned kindred spirit of Quasimodo.

Fr. Dione, the parish priest, grimaced at the tolling of the bell. Perched like an old balding vulture at the end of his bed, Fr. Dione’s reason for being awake at such an ungodly hour was not out of any pious religious devotion. Quite simply it was Fr. Dione who paid Raymond Rechid’s weekly wages out of the St. Sanctus’ daily monetary gatherings. And quite simply, if Raymond was to miss any one of his never-ending appointed church duties, Fr. Dione would, with a feeling of relief befitting any miserly old man, refuse to pay Raymond his entitled sum; a sum that even an ordinary Tardy town child would scoff at.

Somewhat grudgingly, Fr. Dione picked up his thumb-sized graphite pencil from his bedside table and crossed the Thursday night box off his scrutinisingly extensive Rechid’s weekly performance checklist. Pulling back the stiff as cardboard bed sheets, he crawled underneath for some well needed shuteye.

Zucchero ~ MFCC, Ta' Qali, 30/07/2011

{Published in The Times of Malta, 03/08/2011}

Zucchero... with no spice

Surrounded by a metallic warehouse, a skeletal globe-like construction, and a stadium floodlight looming imposingly above, the MFCC open air grounds comes across more like a top secret military hangar than a venue fit for a music concert. But as the bustling crowd shuffled down the aisles into their allocated seats, the lit-up Chocabeck tour stage-set offered a tad more spectacle: tower bells and violet balloons hanging like clusters of grapes against a backdrop of archways overseeing golden barley fields.

With the release of latest album Chocabeck, Zucchero has been met with a renewal of credibility in the motherland. The supporting tour sees the Italian rock and blues artist return to Malta with his travelling caravan of 11 musicians for his third concert here.

It takes a particularly Italian mix of coolness and braggadocio for a singer to walk out on stage in front of an amassed crowd and plonk himself casually on a throne nonetheless, without showing any sign of shamefacedness. But sit himself on a throne Zucchero did, almost humbly if that’s even possible, and with two guitar wielding minstrels on either side of him the concert began in laid-back acoustic mode. New songs Il Suono della Domenica and Soldati nella mia Città sounded intricately lush and heartfelt.

“Malta, stand up!” yelled the Sugar man over the euphoric string motif and pounding bass drum intro of recent hit single Vedo Nero; the first upbeat number of the night. This directive specifically addressed to the audience majority in the seated sections, who up until that point had been diligently giving their feet a rest, got most standing but by no means all. God forbid someone should see them actually enjoying themselves. The shame!

As the evening progressed, the atmosphere remained ostensibly flat. Just when Zu and band built a bit of momentum it was smothered almost immediately with another string of slowies. The frequent sitting and standing made it hard for even the more enthusiastic of the crowd to get a feel-good vibe going.

Pointless inclusions of pre-recorded backing vocals and beefed up percussion to help replicate the records live, only served to kill any hint of thrilling spontaneity. And quite why the keyboardist took on horn sounding solos when there was a three-piece horn section on stage is anyone’s guess. Only during Con le Mani was the saxophonist finally given room to let loose; the performance sounding all the better for it.

Diavolo in Me, with its mock-Gospel opening and blues-rock groove, was a brief flash of good ol’ fashioned fun. Zucchero, now sporting a Machiavellian impish mask, judiciously worked the crowd, hitting those vocal Joe Cocker-esque heights with aplomb.

But if there is a lesson to be learnt from Zucchero’s concert, it is that if you want a Maltese audience to go absolutely mental, simply play them a bit of opera. A few seconds into encore Miserere, which featured the voice and image of late great Italian tenor Pavarotti via the big screen projection, and people were stumbling to their feet faster than it would have taken the big man to wolf down a dish of tortellini.

The crowd just about all stayed put and danced the funky gallo in the final Per Colpa di Chi, which saw the night off in good enough spirits. Staunch defenders of Italian music may claim it was the best thing since Italian TV discovered the Wonderbra, but for the rest it was no more than an OK night out.

Santana ~ MFCC, Ta' Qali, 24/07/2011

{Published in The Times of Malta, 27/07/2011}

A Supernatural Evening with Santana

After almost twenty years of near obscurity, the odds of ageing guitarist Carlos Santana rocketing straight back to global superstardom with an album that won him 9 Grammys, sold in excess of 25 million copies, and made him an icon for the MTV generation were, it’s fair to say, slimmer than Elvis rising from his grave to go on tour with John Lennon.

But Supernatural proved to be quite the winning ticket, and now a decade later the Woodstock veteran is still going strong. Currently touring in support of recent album release Guitar Heaven, Santana finished the European leg of the tour with a special stop at the MFCC arena in Ta’ Qali.

A burst of congas, timbales, and probably every other tribal sounding piece of percussion as yet discovered by Western man, and Carlos Santana shuffled on stage to the groove infused Spark of the Divine looking like, but not necessarily, a packet of Marlboro Golds. Dressed in immaculate white from head to toe, and wrapped in a soft-gold waistcoat, the 64-year-old still appears rejuvenated by his late-life reclaim to fame.

With his signature PRS guitar slung waist high, the Mexican’s trademark virtuoso guitar licks were somewhat drowned out by the indistinguishable cacophony of instruments rendered by the arena’s troublesome acoustics. The opening minutes sounded so “out there” due to the cracking percussions and echo drenched brass frenetically ricocheting all around the semi-cylindrical arena, it made Miles Davis’ hugely experimental Bitches Brew album sound like trad jazz in comparison. There were certainly a few quizzical looking faces among the audience.

Once the sound crew finally ironed out all technical gremlins the show really began to sparkle and take a life of its own: and they couldn’t have timed it better with Santana’s triple whammy of fan favourites Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va and Maria Maria raising the room temperature from simmering to sizzling.

The blend of sultry Latino rock, muggy enclosed air and a few beers, proved to be a little too much for a worrying number of middle aged men, who were, one can only suppose, dancing with hopes of regaining that Woodstock experience that they missed out on all those years ago. It fell to the attendant ladies to adequately pick up the slack.

Santana’s musical output since the blockbuster Supernatural has been arguably dubious. With a never-ending host of big name collaborations and play-it-safe material, these releases inadvertently made Carlos Santana appear to be a mere cameo star on his own albums; delivering the occasional bankable salacious lick just to spice things up. Thankfully, it is Carlos who takes centre-stage in the live shows. Throughout the night, he worked his voodoo on the trance induced crowd with his signature wailing guitar solos, sounding truly inspired and effervescent.

Slicker than a snake in a barrel of butter, the ten-strong Santana band were also given ample time to showcase their individual skills in a selfless mark of entrustment and admiration from their moustachioed ringleader; entertaining, if slightly tiresome after the zillionth time.

Clearly Santana’s last three albums have been little more than marketable cash cows to sustain interest in the band’s upcoming live tours. With only six numbers from the ensemble’s resurgence period recordings, the setlist was predominantly dedicated to the Santana of yore. The latter half of the show in particular was one faultless segue of extended improvised jams - featuring staples such as Jingo, Europa and Soul Sacrifice - interspersed with Carlos’ very own drawn-out monologues that featured the words love, peace, and happiness mentioned several times and then some.

After almost three full hours of Latin-inflected musicianship, the audience now in an outright sweaty Salsa stupor, Santana and band wrapped up the show to festive cheers that engulfed the reverberating MFCC. Supernatural he may not be, but with performances of this class Carlos Santana comes pretty damn close.

Partly, I Guess

If:

The garden withers and clockwork stops
Hanging ceiling lamps begin to drop
Stairs collapse, hinges rust
Wooden doors are shredded to dust
Wallpaper hangs in moldy lumps
Filth and grime gathers in clumps
The kitchen walls blacken with smouldering smoke
Floorboards and carpets sluggishly soak
Water flows though I close the tap
The drainpipes moan as they burst and crack
Ceramic tiles smash and shatter
Bed sheets are ripped and torn to tatters
My hallway mirror reflection is permanently maimed
The antique coffee table goes up in flames
Fruit on the mantelpiece begins to rot
Stench rises from waste bins forgot

If brick by boring brick it all came down
Would I be upset?
Partly, I guess

But pick, and pry, and poke, and snide, and impose, and intrude, and snub, and snoop, and judge, and gut my little accumulated creative wealth
Then watch me collapse into myself

Kesang Marstrand ~ Coach & Horses, B’Kara, 10/06/2011

{Published in The Times of Malta, 15/06/2011}

Of Roses & Polaroid Love

A subtle warm breeze drifts in through the open paned window of the Coach & Horses. Red, green and yellow light bulbs glow from different nooks and corners around the room, while a ceiling fan whirs idly above. Just in front of a small makeshift stage sits a modest assemblage of people – some in chairs, others legs crossed on the floor – listening reverentially to American folk singer-songwriter Kesang Marstrand. Her guitar jangles sweetly, nails plucking the steel wound strings. Her voice blooms with silky warmth and withers in a hushed rasp.

And just when you think the moment couldn’t get any more ‘Sofia Coppola', a boy and girl ride past on a bicycle in the road beyond the pub’s window: girl holding on to boy’s shoulders, hair blowing in the oncoming wind.

This is the second of Marstrand’s two-night stint at the Coach & Horses, and another opportunity for the folkster to share her delicate songs with a new audience in person. From opening number Grow a Garden she loses herself to her performance, making you believe that even if it were solely you in the room she would still deliver each song with the same wholeheartedness.

“You have my special permission to download my latest album Our Myth for free,” says a smiling Marstrand, having been informed that Malta has yet to be granted access to Apple’s iTunes Store. Brushing her long chestnut hair back behind her ear, she continues with It All Comes Back and Any Kind of Blue, whispering a rather timid “thank you” in between.

Marstrand has a knack for covering the most unlikely material and making it not only work, but wholly her own in the process. Her version of the Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney duet Say Say Say, included on her 2008 debut Bodega Rose, was a great example of how inspiring covers could be when there’s actually some thought and effort put into it.

Perhaps with even more daring, tonight she performs Far From the Home I Love from the musical Fiddler on the Roof; a song that “parrallels my life a lot.” The transition from extravagantly-arranged-musical-number to skin-and-bones-acoustic-rendition is so seamless that it must get other female folk artists wondering how they had never thought of that before.

Marstrand’s lyrics can, for the most part, be safely filed under the love category. Avoid the happy-ever-after Disney section though; these are more the Polaroid film version: grainy, spontaneous, prone to fade over time with just a scribbled line remaining below to remind you of what once was. On Today Next Year she croons, “Now I'm thinking that I should've sung you Happy Birthday softly with my lips against your ear/So I'll do it in my mind now/And I'll do it in the flesh if we're together today next year.”

From her flower-child good looks to her humble disposition, everything about Kesang Marstrand is beautifully understated and captivating. She draws her set to an end with the romantically melancholic Bodega Rose, with its images of endless nights, entangled bodies, and freshly cut red flowers. With another quiet “thank you” that is barely audible over the affectionate applause, she unplugs her guitar, leaving those present to slowly come out of her dreamy spell.

Kesang Marstand

Link for my review on the Times of Malta website posted on Kesang's Facebook page

Glycerine

Look at the glycerine, see it sparkle and shimmer
The line on the horizon slowly dissipating, getting thinner
A thousand shades of white and gray now silver
Contain the leaking blue that floods through the vessel
The hubris of brightness piercing the senses
Tearing down worn-out analogue fences
In the infinite sphere, polystyrene perfection
Not a taint or a blemish to distinguish complexion
Filth and ruin run through veins beneath exo-skeleton
Clog the pipe work to infect communal perception
Above and surrounding the fluid serene
The mindless bliss of electric dreams
Slice the tubing, let solution waste
Wait for the whir and whine of panicked mechanical pain
And while this new corporeal may not rot
The ghost in its machine can only be forgot

Owen Pallett ~ San Gejtanu Band Club, Hamrun, 01/05/2011

{Published in The Times of Malta, 04/05/2011}

A Pallett of Sounds

Taking his cues from a multiplicity of realms, violinist and composer Owen Pallett has formulated an atypical and idiosyncratic musical conglomeration that has earned him, among other things, the prestigious Polaris Music Prize – the Canadian equivalent of the UK’s Mercury Prize. Yet his output thus far has been somewhat overshadowed by his affiliation with more commercially successful acts, such as fellow Canadian folk rock ensemble Arcade Fire.

Now signed to Domino records, Pallett is starting to gain wider attention and is currently touring in support of his most recent album Heartland, performing in, from all places imaginable, the outside courtyard of San Gejtanu Band Club; surprisingly, a characteristically appropriate venue for this variety of intimate event.

Local indie folk band Stalko opened proceedings armed with a set of organic instruments, their wistful melodies equally poignant, as they are playful. A tendency to revert to sweeping vocal chants in most of their songs was at times overkill, but the four-piece provided a fitting start to the night.

A hollow resonant wave of grimy dissonant chords gave way to the twinkling piano-motif exordium of A Man with no Ankles. Having formulated this musical nucleus, Owen Pallett began to blend in layer upon lush layer of looped strings and other assorted sounds not habitually anticipated to exit the wooden chamber of a violin. The effect was nothing short of spellbinding.

Within the space of a heartbeat, the Bohemian musician had already segued straight into Scandal at the Parkade, continuing to showcase the one-man whirlwind of polyphony that he is.

“I’m from Toronto Canada,” was Pallett’s matter-of-fact self-introduction, before he acquainted the audience with his two intercontinental sidekicks onstage: “My violin is from China and my synth is from Sweden.” Not allowing for petty chitchat to get in the way of musical extravaganza so early on, Pallett busily recommenced doing what he does best, with the violin at his shoulder now evoking the sounds of sonorous icicles dripping in a glacier cave.

Across each melodious segment of the gig – song would be too imprecise a word to use here – Pallett’s violin morphed into whole sections of harmonised strings, bass lines, percussion and on occasion even provided a makeshift voice box. The effortlessness and flawlessness of his highly intricate sampling techniques was a show in itself, and despite all the virtuosity on display, there was hardly a whiff of showboating.

Sipping on a glass of wine, Pallett took a well-deserved breather after an incendiary performance of Lewis Takes Action, and in an unconventional format asked whether the audience had any questions or comments. As happens too often on this island nowadays, divorce was the topic at hand, with Pallett offering a rather plausible, if humorous, scenario as to how Malta could make an industry out of gay divorce.

Each aspect of Pallett’s performance was staggeringly versatile and dynamic. Vocally he was a silky tenor one minute, Theremin-like choirboy the next. His lyrics were as equally enchanting, as was evident with lines such as “He spends an hour a day composing little eulogies … But it's mostly garbled phrases and apologies,” on E is for Estranged.

With nowhere to hide offstage, Pallett refrained from doing the usual encore trivialities. Staying put, he finished off with a joyous cover of Mariah Carey’s Fantasy, while some in the audience blew bubbles into the warm night sky. With a wave and a bow Owen Pallett’s aural imaginarium came to an end.

Lesson learnt

“You can please some of the people all of the time,

... you can please all of the people some of the time,

... but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”