Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: 22.04.2015
Attendance: 550
Ticket price: 20,00€
Colorado’s independent alt-rock wildmen Wovenhand have paid the Slovenian capital another visit as part of their new tour promoting their latest, and seventh overall, studio album »Refractory Obdurate« (2014). The name behind which stands the musical doctrine of an extraordinary visionary and its driving engine David Eugene Edwards, a literal »mad horse«, is the kind of representative of the alternative rock underground you just can’t squeeze into any stylistic pigeonhole. Over the last few years the band’s style has been slowly transforming, and Wovenhand haven’t been just »one man, one project« for a long time now, but a solid four-piece rock outfit. The last two studio albums in particular are weighed down by a heavy rock stance, with fewer of the organic touches typical of the earlier period, where the weave of folk elements from the traditional American musical heritage and the integration of instruments like the banjo, bouzouki, mandolin, banjola and accordion were a constant. Now they’re either rarer, or »sunk« into the arrangements so deep that they no longer necessarily take the lead in the songs.
About 20 minutes past nine in the evening, Los Angeles indie rockers Marriages took the stage. The trio of Emma Ruth Rundle (vocals, guitar), Greg Burns (bass, programming) and Andrew Clinco (drums) used a good half hour to present their debut studio album »Salome«. And they had plenty to show. The trio built a soundscape with excellent sonic character. Emma’s guitar was drenched in a thick-sounding galaxy of pedal effects, laying a bed of synths under a smeared guitar sound that stirred up feelings typical of shoegaze, while the repetitive, hypnotic, dreamy loops and the voluminous, accentuated wall of sound aimed at post-rock territory. Burns occasionally implanted programmed sound loops that enriched the atmosphere of the sound they’d built, while eagerly grinding away at his guitar. The simple sonic figures gave the drums exemplary room to open up and »stroll« all over them with the toms, which suited the band’s overall sonic and stage performance enormously. Steering the Marriages set away from any possible clichés was Emma’s charismatic and superbly lived-in vocal, who surely left her soul and heart on that stage. Dark melancholy, through Emma’s deeply felt and passionate tangle of vocal excesses, full of sweet pain and internalized feminine darkness, came across as extremely »British«, very close to Europe. You’d almost mistakenly think they’re Brits! The band opened and closed the show with Ride in My Place and Part the Dark Again, both from the EP »Kitsune«, and used the central part of the set to promote the album »Salome«. Marriages are a killer band who should win the trio the sympathies of wider crowds in the independent rock underground!
For Wovenhand’s set, the stage monitors were pushed back about two meters from the edge of the stage. Drums »planted« high at the back, David Eugene Edwards standing on the left. With a hat pulled down over his blond, tousled hair, two feathers sticking out of it, he honestly looked like the incarnation of an Indian medicine man. The »sharply« dressed bandleader, as expected, strapped on his famous semi-acoustic beauty with two f-holes, a Gretsch Electromatic 5120 Orange with a Bigsby vibrato, and dove into the microphone with his vocals. On the right stands bassist Ordy Garrison, on the far right guitarist Charles Edward French, and behind the drums Neil Keener.
In an instant the quartet conjured up a distinctive sonic backdrop, a »ragged, ruined« yet massive, darkly thick wall of sound that took over the room. Built on a heavily reverbed sound and stereo chorus effects, it gave the curtain of sound a truly massive weight. Leading the way was Edwards’ dominant, singular delivery of the verses, for which he sings through an effected microphone so that the distortion of his vocals comes out as ominous, thunderous preaching! It echoed hollowly in waves through the space of Kino Šiška. The feeling of a shamanic ritual was deepened by his hand gestures too. Dark vistas of the apocalypse are born! In any case, the lyrics lay bare a battle between good and evil inside the soul of an individual who is aware of the sins they’ve committed, yet yearns for final purification and cleanness, which in this day and age is, of course, almost by rule a pure illusion. I’m talking about the Western European way of life. The sense of a shamanic ritual play was deepened as well by drummer Neil Keener’s pronounced »strolls« across the toms, jerkily shredding the riff forms with proper tribal rhythms. The quartet built an incredible sonic contrast!
On the songs from the new album, Corsicana Clip, King David and The Refractory, David Eugene Edwards picked up a new instrument. From a distance it looked like some »worn-out« old bouzouki, but it was actually a banjola. The band carried on with the magic of black vistas into the gloomy corners of Edwards’ wounded and yearning soul.
The band caught people a bit off guard with the setlist, as it covered strictly the last two studio albums. The new »Refractory Obdurate« (2014) and its predecessor »The Laughing Stock« (2012). Longtime followers of the band didn’t exactly welcome that fact with open arms. That’s the only shortcoming, and of course it’s a matter of each person’s own take, which means it’s not necessarily a bothersome remark. Edwards and company obviously enjoy their current form of artistic creation and freely follow their instincts, which in the end is the only thing that counts. The seemingly grim and unapproachable Edwards greeted the crowd for the first time only in the second half of the show, which is part of the pose the artist adopts in his creative field. The concert flew by in the blink of an eye, which means Wovenhand, as expected, did their job in full, with great distinction. The figure and the work of the band remain unique, as does the stage presence of the ever-fascinating lone rider David Eugene Edwards!
Setlist
MARRIAGES
1. Ride in My Place
2. Southern Eye
3. The Liar
4. Santa Sangre
5. Skin
6. Salome
7. Part the Dark Again
WOWENHAND:
1. In the Temple
2. Hiss
3. Long Horn
4. Closer
5. Maize
6. Masonic Youth
7. King O King
8. El-bow
9. Corsicana Clip
10. King David
11. The Refractory
12. Obdurate Obscura
13. Field of Hedon
—encore—
14. Salome
15. Good Shepherd
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