Tag Archives: Norwich Arts Centre

The Wandering Hearts, Norwich Arts Centre, 13 December 2022

Opening this fine evening of folk and Americana music in this converted church venue was Lauren Housley, showcasing her soulful voice and song writing as featured on her album ‘Girl From The North’. With just acoustic guitar backing her performance had instant appeal for the near sell-out audience.

For this tour The Wandering Hearts have stripped back to the core trio and with two excellent albums already and many new songs due for release soon their set was rich in highlights. Blending their three harmonies for an introductory cover of ‘White Christmas’ and then into the subtle delights of early single ‘Burning Bridges’, the acoustics of this ancient building showed off the gorgeous sounds.

The three performers create a very full sound, with only guitar backing for many of the tracks, sometimes augmented by mandolin and piano. To contrast the gentleness of ‘Dolores’ and ‘Lullaby’ there were plenty of anthemic choruses like ‘Build a Fire’ and main set closer ‘Devil’. With a seasonal finale of Auld Lang Syne blended with the outstanding ‘Wish I Could’ it was a superb show, echoing long in the memory.

https://www.thewanderinghearts.com/

https://www.laurenhousley.com/

Smoke Fairies, Norwich Arts Centre, 3 February 2020

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The city of Norwich is full of historic churches; this church of St Swithin was converted into an Arts Centre in 1980 and won the NME award for best small venue in Britain in 2014. It was the perfect venue for the gothic-folk of Smoke Fairies.

Accompanied by a drummer (and later to join the headliners on bass), John J Presley lets his guitar, bottleneck and deep-toned voice bring the audience into his world. With an echoing guitar sound straining and distorting, his songs use dark riffs on the lower strings on ‘Dance with Me’ and delve into murky blues for ‘On a Sunday’. ‘Left’ was a faster pop-like stomp and I found that the final song ‘Riders’ was a concise movie soundtrack lingering powerfully into the memory.

Smoke Fairies have a very new album out evocatively titled ‘Darkness Brings The Wonders Home’ and that formed the core of their set tonight, brought to life by the atmospheric guitar playing and magical dual voices of Jessica and Katherine. Opener ‘Super Tremolo’ has a tense, urgent structure and immediately all the elements are in place, a firm foundation from bass and drums as the guitars intertwine lines that fade in and out and the double line of vocals power through but float above the song.

Like a dark medieval folk song ‘Out Of The Woods’ is a definite highlight, the melody sounds like it is coming at you through the silvery trees and the harmonies in the chorus are otherworldly and sublime. Older songs such as ‘Summer Fades’ and ‘After The Rain’ from their first LP show how the band has developed to embrace different styles. ‘Left To Roll’ was the slow-burning emotional centrepiece of the show and the paranoid dream of ‘Elevator’ is built round a fuzzy, sinister chord sequence.
The encore featured the dense, complex ‘Feel It Coming Near’ and finally another new highlight, the rocking ‘Chocolate Rabbit’ (‘….you’re hollow inside, you leave me unsatisfied…’)

This is one of my favourite venues and Smoke Fairies are a band who can effortlessly weave their music into the fabric of this ancient building, as their majestic harmonies float up into the vaulted roof…

https://www.musicglue.com/smokefairies/
https://www.facebook.com/John-J-Presley-180387252007865/
https://cambridgemusicreviews.net/2019/08/10/smoke-fairies-out-of-the-woods-single-released-august-2019/

Mary Epworth, Norwich Arts Centre, 2 September 2017

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Three upcoming acts from the Momentum funding programme in the converted church that is Norwich Arts Centre. First on was Love Ssega, originally part of Clean Bandit, he now records polyrhythmic funk and soulful commentaries on modern life. Tonight his full band were stripped back to a subtle single electric guitar, this was an empathetic accompaniment to his strong voice and winning personality.

Hannah Peel is an amazingly talented solo performer, dressed in a white flowing outfit, surrounded by keyboards and conjuring extra sounds and effects from violin, a music box and her voice she takes herself and the audience to another plane. ‘All That Matters’ is a show-stopper, even better than the recorded version.
Back projections of her parents’ wedding video from 1978 seem timeless as the gorgeous and melodic ballad ‘Tenderly’ builds to a crescendo. I’m not sure quite what ‘Cars In The Garden’ is all about but it is a fine and memorable song. She ended the set with the epic ‘Foreverest’, an electronic spectacular; more evidence that Hannah is a creative force to be reckoned with.

Musical free spirit Mary Epworth has just released her second album, ‘Elytral’ (..relating to the wing cases of a beetle…) and tonight with a four piece band she enhanced the recorded versions of many of the tracks, with industrial bold beats, plenty of percussion, free-flowing saxophone and deep, deep bass synthesiser; it is a heady mix.
At times sounding like a modern version of ‘Being Boiled’ by the Human League but with Mary’s voice floating and yearning over the music she has created a sound all her own. This is most evident on ‘Me Swimming’, an extended, echoing piece with haunting hookline. ‘Last Night’ has a more ambient experimental start then a cacophony of synth crashes in like distorted sirens.

…..and the music disappeared upwards into the high rafters of this superb venue….

http://maryepworth.com/
http://www.hannahpeel.com/
https://www.lovessega.com/

Ryley Walker, Norwich Arts Centre, 27 August 2015

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Norwich is full of historic churches; this church of St Swithin was converted into an Arts Centre in 1980 and won the NME award for best small venue in Britain in 2014.

This was a suitably atmospheric venue for US singer/songwriter Ryley Walker, leading his band on acoustic and 12-string guitar, with drums, double bass, electric piano and electric guitar. This enabled them to reproduce the textures of the stunning recent album but the arrangements went way beyond copying the recorded versions. Opening with ‘On The Banks Of The Old Kishwaukee’ it was several minutes before we arrived at the river and Ryley’s mellow vocals. The audience and most of the band seemed rapt as the waves of sound rolled around the old church. Similar delights followed, including the album title track ‘Primrose Green’.

Ryley has an elegant finger picking style, showcased in a solo set part way through which included a cover of Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ and a great version of ‘Cocaine Blues’. He conjures up a similar intimacy and connection as the late John Martyn on these solo tracks and shows the timeless nature of the music.

An evening of excellent songs and performance at a great venue.

(A mention of the support act, intense singer/songwriter/guitarist Danny Whitehouse. I didn’t see his full set but I was impressed that instead of conventional merchandise he was giving away old library books containing hand-written messages…)

http://www.ryleywalker.com/