The first show by James Blackshaw with additional musicians begins a little oddly. A man plays a brief tuba solo, then settles down to some concerted texting on his phone. It turns out that this is a false start, however. The James Blackshaw Ensemble might contain a cellist, two violin players and a flautist, but the tuba player – warming up, it transpires – is here to accompany the support act, guitarist/pianist Tom James Scott, through a series of hushed, minimal pieces.
There’s an interesting snippet in the next issue of Uncut, when the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne talks about Portishead’s “Third”. “It got under my skin,” he says. “From the standpoint of being in a band, they do some fun production things, it’s pretty inspiring. I liked how they embraced more stranger elements of prog-rock, and Silver Apples-influenced drum loops and things like that.”
Putting aside my morbid suspicion of quirky cover versions for five minutes, have a look at this: an enjoyable take on Joy Division’s “Transmission”, filmed at Jeremy Deller’s Procession for the Manchester International Festival last weekend.
The last time I wrote about James Yorkston, I seem to remember some vaguely disinterested feelings about the extended Fence Collective family resulted in a bit of a spat with that scene’s loyalists. So avoiding context this time out, Yorkston has come up with what feels like a pretty fast follow-up to “When The Haar Rolls In”.
