Kinning Park Complex/CCA, Glasgow
4 stars
Theatrics were to the fore on the third and final day of the inaugural
Counterflows festival, which proved to be an intense and largely
song-based affair featuring an array of left-field divas
and show-people. With Sunday afternoon’s events at Kinning Park’s
artist-led space curated by the small but perfectly-formed
Tracer Trails organisation, none were
showier than Iain Campbell F W, whose live art display involving
assorted amplifiers, recording devices, record players and laptop
footage of himself seemed to question the nature of performance itself.
Following Saturday’s trio set, veteran Swedish drummer Sven-Ake
Johansson’s solo routine began with him utilising two copies of the Yellow Pages to
skitter out a series of clip-clopping percussive patterns which
occasionally broke into a gallop. While the extended rolls on a snare
drum that followed were just as much fun, once Johansson picked up the
brushes to vamp it up on “three love songs”, the scat vocals and
Swedish-accented shoo-be-doos became something else again.
Opening the evening programme at the CCA, German singer Margareth
Kammerer combined a strident blues rasp and minimal electric guitar to
interpret poetic works by e.e. cummings, William Blake and un-named
Portuguese lyricists to startlingly dramatic effect. Looping her vocals
to heighten her stark incantations, there were moments that recalled
the post Lloyd-Webber rock folly Julie Covington’s version of Alice
Cooper’s Only Women Bleed if she’d been put through an avant drone
blender.
With Bill Wells clearly en route to national treasure status,
it should be noted that his National Jazz Trio of Scotland do not
play conventional jazz, and indeed aren’t a trio. None of which matters
in a sublime set of school assembly style melancholy, in which Wells’
exquisitely understated piano patterns underscored a collection of
equally lovely vocal performances. When not soloing, Aby Vulliamy, Kate
Sugden and Lorna Gilfedder provided harmonies for each other in a
beguilingly charming display unmatched since Weekend’s Alison Statton
was backed by pianist Keith Tippett at Ronnie Scott’s thirty years ago.
The extent to which Japanese polymath maverick Kazuki Tomokawa is
regarded became clear when the entire contents of his merchandise stall
was snapped up before the gig even started. Once a trilbyed-up Tomokawa
picked up his acoustic guitar to belt out an hour’s worth of urgent
little litanies, it was easy to see the appeal. His cracked whispers,
manic laughter and wracked version of highly-strung troubadourism are
as raw as anything by Jacques Brel, and his delivery just as startling.
At one point early in his set he attacks his guitar with such ferocity
that the string he breaks is shoved aside while he retunes as he goes.
It’s a fitting climax to what looks set to be a major addition to
Scotland’s increasingly fertile contemporary music scene.
A shorter version of this appeared in The Herald, April 10th 2012
ends
Myra McFadyen – Actress Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024 Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.” For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
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