Burns&Beyond
Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
Four stars
There can’t be many serious contemporary classical composers who end their live shows with a classic pop sing-along anthem, This is exactly what Anna Meredith and band did, however, for their Burns&Beyond festival show of maximalist machine age euphoria delivered with enough Tiggerish ebullience to sound like a Radio 3 rave.
With Meredith currently working on a new album, this one-off show was clearly a treat for both her and tuba player Hanna Mbuya, cellist Maddie Cutter, Sam Wilson on drums and Jack Ross on guitar. Sporting matching jumpsuits that make them look like they’ve stepped out of a 1970s TV ad for minty sweet, Pacers, the quintet launch themselves into an opening rally of the first three tracks of Meredith’s second album, Fibs, released in 2019. Over the next hour, the relentless zing never lets up for a second.
Sawbones is bashed out with Meredith pounding drums like her life depended on it; Inhale Exhale is delivered with a suitably breathless gallop; and Calion sees electronic rhythms combine with deliriously blissed-out cello. There is a tuba led sci-fi chase scene soundtrack in waiting, lovely vocals and strings interplay on Divining, while a low key Moonmoons is “something to channel the magic of Burns,” as Meredith puts it.
At one point, the Edinburgh raised composer ‘fesses up how she once worked in the room she is now playing during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her only job, she says, was to go up to people in the audience and ask them to stop taking photographs of famous people. With people taking pictures of her tonight, Meredith gives an impressive recitation of Sandy Thomas Ross’ poem, The Auld Broon Troot, while a later spiel promoting the merch stall suggests an alternative career on the Shopping Channel.
Rewinding to Meredith’s 2016 debut, Varmints, Nautilus sounds like a foghorn in flight before going stratospheric, Something Helpful channels leftfield 1980s baroque pop somewhere between Virgina Astley and Propaganda, and The Vapours is a full-on hands-in-the-air banger. If you think things can’t get any higher, the grand finale of The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles is a glorious rabble-rousing delight.
The Herald, January 29th 2024
ends
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