Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Kino Šiška / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 03.03.2015
Attendance: 500
Ticket price: €18.00 (presale) / €22.00 (day of show)
The renowned British trip hop duo Lamb dropped by our neck of the woods for the second time, this time to present their new album, their sixth studio record overall, »Backspace Unwind«. At their first show in December 2011 the hall was bursting at the seams, and while the turnout wasn’t quite as huge this time, it was still a very solid crowd. Lamb clearly have firm support on our soil among fans of »binary« music, and they remain a solid, eclectic entity of superb trip hop that likes to drift into drum n’ bass and dub waters, with bits of jazz you definitely can’t overlook. In recent years trip hop has sunk out of the commercial spotlight, but in its hottest days it gave us a handful of eclectic acts that defined a distinct musical direction with their vision and developed their own unique voice within it. The Brits have every right to brag about groups like Massive Attack, Portishead and of course Lamb.
The warm-up was handled by Bowrain, the project of local DIY wizard Tine Grgurevič. He’s a composer, keyboardist and, of course, producer all in one. On stage he was joined, with his own set of keyboards and samplers, by Mario Babojelič, a seasoned guitarist who’s also part of The Puzzled, the project of Katalena’s bassist Syaed. Double Nord keyboards, fortresses studded with sampling buttons and a blast into the sonic backdrop of eighties synthesizing. Immensely musical motifs melting into one another, floating on synth blankets of tasteful electronics, creating a constant »cerebral« experience of traveling through a parallel world where the sense of time and space disappears. Toward the end Babojelič colored a few of the backdrops with guitar run through a synthesizer, and singer Lili Kongo added her own touch too, bringing a dark, alt-flavored veil with her distinctive voice while also impressing with her soul/R&B leanings. With the album »Far Out« in his pocket, Bowrain is an artist worth keeping an eye on in the future. A very handy pick for the warm-up before Lamb.
For a nicely rounded hour and three quarters, Lou Rhodes and Andy Barlow, backed by touring helper Jon Thorne, conjured up pure magic. As expected, the most attention went to their latest studio effort, »Backspace Unwind«, but the most representative moments of the band’s enviable career didn’t get left out of the set either, including the hits everyone was waiting for, Gabriel and, in the encore, Górecki. Andy, who unleashed lots of memorized soundscapes with trivially minimal movements (samplers, modulators), put a lot of effort into constantly firing up the crowd, which worked every time, as the audience gave itself over completely to the sonic structures and the magic the duo created. He also moved over to the electric piano a few times. Bassist Jon Thorne proved to be the man who, with his electric cello, repeatedly set individual musical collages in contrast, so the music gained even more depth and atmospheric infectiousness in the room. Still, most of the ovations, and most of the attention, went to the incredible Lou Rhodes. The lady impressed with her gentle sensuality and fragility, with a vocal that was at times downright girlishly angelic, and which hit especially hard in the quieter moments with its dose of emotion.
The mood and the crowd’s response rose and fell in dynamic waves throughout the show. That was down to a setlist that jumped between unleashing heavier doses of danceable rhythmic kinetics, backed by a lot of effects-drenched sonic racket (coloring with guitar), where the vocals also melted into the music’s dictates and the band pushed toward more forceful sampling, so that the experiments at times loosened up the otherwise compact fabric of individual songs, and then in the very next moment the rhythmic sonic hurricane would die down, replaced by an experience of tender, mellow soundscapes, where the fascinating Lou reigned supreme over the delicate, minimalist backdrop of the electric piano. In short, a dynamic and exciting performance by one of the most interesting and most respected acts in a narrow genre sphere, one that, thanks to the incredible creative space offered by sound manipulation in electronic music, casts its spell with a sweet shock. On this second visit to the Slovenian capital, Lamb once again shone in full.
Setlist
1. In Binary
2. We Fall in Love
3. Butterfly Effect
4. Little Things
5. As Satellites Go By
6. Backspace Unwind
7. Strong The Root
8. Nobody Else
9. What Makes Us Human
10. Gabriel
11. B-Line
12. God Bless
13. Seven Sails
—encore—
14. What Sound
15. Górecki
16. Trans Fatty Acid
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