Sinister: (BIG!) New York Times show review

[Skreddy56 at xxx.com]

Hello there!  Here's the Times review of the B+S show on Sunday.  Sorry if
this took too long to load up, or if someone else has already sent it to you.
 Enjoy!
--Matt

Good music doesn't always come to you. Sometimes you have to find it
yourself, without radio, MTV, major record chains and magazines. But somehow,
in Manhattan, quality in pop and rock usually doesn't go unheralded. Concerts
by two new, promising and little-known British acts, Beth Orton (on Saturday
night at the Westbeth Theater) and Belle and Sebastian (on Sunday night at
the Angel Orensanz Foundation on the Lower East Side), were filled to
capacity with admiring fans, most of whom had discovered these artists via
word of mouth. 

  Unlike Oasis, Blur and other bands playing Brit-pop, Ms. Orton and Belle
and Sebastian played light, airy Brit-folk characterized more by shyness than
brashness. Softness, plainness and sensitivity were not signs of weakness but
goals to be pursued in songs chiseled out of delicate arrangements and smart,
perceptive lyrics. Self-effacing onstage, both acts seemed embarrassed when
the audience applauded at the beginning of a song it recognized. Both also
consisted of eight-piece ensembles that weren't afraid to destabilize the
folk songs with touches of punk-rock and electronic dance-music. At the same
time, each song would have sounded just as good performed by one person on an
acoustic guitar. 

  Ms. Orton dedicated "I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine" to Diana, Princess of
Wales, softly intoning such moving lyrics as "If I never saw the sunshine,
baby, then maybe I wouldn't mind the rain." As soon as she was finished, she
added a punk-rock editorial, exclaiming, "Fascist regime!" a quote from the
Sex Pistols' anarchist version of "God Save the Queen." "I'm not a royalist,"
she explained, "but I am a humanist." 

  On her album, "Trailer Park" (Heavenly), Ms. Orton sounds like Tim Buckley
or Nick Drake updated as an experimental trip-hop act. But in concert, Ms.
Orton sounded more traditional, like an underground version of Jewel. A child
of the 70's with a tender touch on guitar and a beautiful voice fading on
this last night of her American tour, she backed her songs with cello,
violin, drums, percussion, guitar and bass. 

  In songs like "Galaxy of Emptiness" and "She Cries Your Name," her lyrics
examined the whole of the universe and the entire landscape of the mind and
found nothing but loneliness. 

  Though just as introverted, the Scottish ensemble Belle and Sebastian was
more of an anomaly. Its members appear to be lazy, unambitious bumblers full
of private jokes they're too sleepy to share. Members forgot lyrics, fell out
of rhythm, lost their place during melodies and took long pauses to switch
instruments. During one break, they asked an audience member for help in
lowering the microphone stand. 

  But somehow, the songs sounded meticulous and exquisite, with Stuart
Murdoch singing in a shy, sweet voice buoyed by a loosely knit cushion of
guitars, violin, cello, brass, drums and keyboards. The approach was best
summed up in lyrics from one of its albums, "Nobody writes them like they
used to/So it may as well be me." Though there is nary a low point on its
excellent second album, "If You're Feeling Sinister" (Jeepster/The Enclave),
or its even newer singles, Belle and Sebastian performed mostly unreleased
songs. Its lyrics looked at characters like a woman modeling the Velvet
Underground in clay, a runner who breaks hearts and lots of people in boring
jobs with active fantasy lives. Its knack was for simple storytelling, with
each lyric thinly veiling a world as lonely as Ms. Orton's. "Could I write a
piece about you now that you've made it?" Mr. Murdoch sang in his winsome,
genteel voice in the song about the runner. "About the hours spent, the
emptiness in your training/You only did it so that you could wear/Your terry
underwear/ And feel the city air/Run past your body." 

  After an hour of watching the concert, fans may have loved the band, but
they still didn't understand it. "You're so very quiet," Mr. Murdoch told the
audience. 

  When the crowd responded by cheering, he raised a hand and meekly tried to
stop them. "No," he explained, "we like that." 



Copyright 1997 The New York Times

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