Sinister: Gently Waving from the Wreckage

[L. Kerr]

In a brave attempt to haul sinister from "commendable" to "essential",
as designated by the Jeepster BS 6511 standard, I have nicked the review
of Gentle Waves from the Guardian.

The Gentle Waves   
improv, London/touring   
By Phil Daoust  
Tuesday April 6, 1999    
You'd almost think you'd strayed into a student 
film club. In a central London basement, a few hundred hippish
twentysomethings gaze in respectful silence at a couple of French movies.
First there's a subtitled print of Les Mistons, Francois Truffaut's
black-and-white short about bicycling, doomed love and stirring sexuality.
Then comes Le Ballon Rouge, Albert Lamorisse's all-but-silent tale of a
boy and the red balloon that is his only friend. When the double-bill
draws to a close, the masses
burst into applause.  

Stop that bandwagon now.  

Bittersweet French movies of the fifties are not the new rock'n'roll. This
is what passes for a support act when you go to see those dippy-trippy
Francophiles The Gentle Waves.  

What comes next should be more straightforward. Isobel Campbell, better
known as a singer and cellist with Glaswegian musos Belle & Sebastian,
leads six colleagues on stage and prepares to unleash her breathy,
haunting vocals. She and the rest of The Gentle Waves are out to promote
their debut album, The Green Fields Of Foreverland, a catchy fusion of pop
and folk and country, sixties in feel but with a punked-up spin
reminiscent of the Rezillos. At times it makes you want to wrap your arms
around yourself and waltz around the room; at others it pulls you into an
amphetamine-frantic 'mashed potato'.

Campbell and Co almost do the business. They run through most of their
(very short) album, and throw in a handful of new numbers, including a
storming trumpet-led instrumental called Grazing In The Grass and a
sexed-up number with the very un-Campbell lines, 'Slip inside of me/I'll
open the gates'. The playing can't be faulted, and the combination of
Campbell's delicate features and steel-in-velvet voice is a moving one.
Yet the 45 minutes of live performance comes out even odder, even less
rock'n'roll, than what preceded it.  

The whole band - Campbell included - seem to be auditioning for jobs as
tailor's dummies. They move whatever limbs are required to operate their
instruments, but little else. Just as Belle & Sebastian have become known
for their dour approach to gigging, this spin-off group act as if they
will be struck by lightning if they smile, let alone shake a leg. They
seem so wrapped up in their music you wonder if they've forgotten they've
got an audience. And, true enough, Campbell looks first surprised, then
embarrassed, when her fans applaud.  

Whether this abstracted musicianship is down to arrogance or
life-and-death professionalism, your mind can't content itself with this
blank canvas. After a while, it starts creating its own images: woman
running through field in floaty dress; windswept face in a sixties
convertible; sunshine making a rainbow in a torrent of tears. The band
become invisible and you might almost be listening to a CD.

It's certainly a novel way to run a gig - first get the visuals out of the
way, then tackle the music. But I'm not sure that it'll catch on. 


Linda
xxx






+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
   +---+  Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list  +---+
  To send to the list mail "sinister at majordomo.net". To unsubscribe
   send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
  "majordomo at majordomo.net".  WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+
 +-+  "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+
 +-+     "nambling pambling rice pudding & crochet holiday camp    +-+
 +-+                   gangwanking whimsy-thon"                    +-+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+