Great night at the Brudenell with our favourite flute player, Laura J Martin, treating us to crazy loops and a whole lot of beautiful tunes that had the social club in raptures. Both support acts were quiet guitar players who will soon be off to play in Sudan….. wonder what they’ll make of them over there? First up was The Gentle Good aka Gareth Bonello who admitted that this was his first time in Leeds – but hopefully not his last. He won the crowd over with some good banter. Next up was Richard James who’s from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (who’s Euros Childs duets on Laura’s new LP). They both reappeared later as part of Laura’s backing band.
Tonight’s show was also the launch of Laura J Matin‘s new CD ‘The Hangman Tree’ which I bought and have been listening to in the car all day – you should do the same. She opened her set with some blistering flute playing (who’d’ve thought flute playing could be blistering!) that left her quite breathless. There’s lots of looping of bits of flute, mandolin and voice which blend together to make something a bit special.
Shoeless, she often stamps out her songs with a passion that’s great to see. When she sang “stand up straight, shoulders back…” I found myself doing just that (from ‘Tom’ – my favourite track on the LP). The only glitch to the evening was when Richard forgot the words to a song he’d written for her…..he was suitably embarrassed but was easily forgiven. She’s a talented lass ploughing her own field which isn’t quite like any you’ve heard before – Good Stuff!
Bob the Chiropodist
Sounds interesting but I think Ian Anderson and James Galway have put me off flute players for life!