Saw this guy live the other day and it was one of the best gigs in ages.
Many of you will be familiar with his instrumental jazz-inflected work, especially Visit Croatia which I think scraped into a recent EOY 77 list and is very beautiful indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmL44wGdef0
When I saw him play he had a small number of excellent accompanists in tow: drums, bass, guitar and a cellist. Alabaster (a stage name apparently) would alternate between sax and spoken word, and the whole thing had a loose semi-improvised feel about it. After each song he would leap up and down excitedly shouting to his band "That was GREAT! THAT WAS GREAT!"
His effervescence and exuberance reminded me of similar eccentric personalities like Jonathan Richman, David Byrne, and fellow Mancunian Gideon Conn - stopping to speak to the audience about his creative process, about his new trainers, about cars and people, about how to overcome confidence ruts etc. Ultimately it was funny and touching and just the kind of thing I tend to enjoy from a performance.
Here's a "live in the studio" performance of "Be Nice To People" with a completely different group of accompanists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Z-DJf33zo
And here's a bit of an anthem with electro-rockers Soccer96 (ft. members of Comet Is Coming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx1YUDVdly8
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Monday, 6 December 2021 12:53 (four years ago)