Ali Wortley once again heads to her Leeds venue of choice for an evening of beautiful chaos – and leaves with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.
Support for the evening came from Ah! Kosmos, the Israeli born Başak Günak who now works out of Berlin, and the music she produces is clearly influenced by both of these places.
Sporting an outfit that wouldn’t be out of place at a posh Christmas do, a little black dress and a sparkly jacket, she stood behind a complex set up of electronics and mixing desks, accompanied by a guitar and saxophone. Başak produces compositions which are complex and cleverly layered and listeners can definitely hear those Eastern influences, although her sound remains firmly rooted in European techno and electronica, backed at times by some very smart vocal effects. I preferred the tracks that included the saxophone rather than guitar as they produced a haunting effect which lingers.
Julia Holter is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and artist, based in Los Angeles. She makes her return to Howard Assembly for the first time in 5 years, with the penultimate gig in her UK tour, promoting her latest release, Aviary. This album has been the soundtrack to many a bike ride recently and has really grown on me.
Julia was accompanied by five other fabulous musicians, each extremely talented in their own field; Corey Fogel- percussion, Devin Hoff- bassist, Dina Maccabee-vocal and violinist/viola, Sarah Belle Reid- trumpeter and Tashi Wada, synth and bagpipes. When viewed simply as a group of individuals, they would have never have been placed together, but my goodness musically they are meant to be. Julia looked extremely natural, dressed in white with a flash of red legging showing under her cropped trousers, adding just an element of quirkiness. She played keyboards and sleigh bells, which at times proved rather troublesome to control.
Howard Assembly Room couldn’t have been a better choice and as regular readers will know by now is my favourite music venue in the City. The wonderful acoustics served to highlight the complexity and composition of the music perfectly. It was at times a performance of beautiful chaos but still extremely intelligent in its construction, without descending into complete madness. On other occasions it was the perfect soundscape, providing an insight into what I imagine is Julia Holter. She seems to be so entrenched in music, even some of the little chatty parts were sung, such as a rendition of ‘We will work it out’ as Tashi becomes concerned about his synth levels.
A bonus which comes with going to gigs is that you pick up on the other stuff you don’t get from just listening to the recordings. I hadn’t seen Julia play live previously so it was lovely to discover that Julia made me smile: she is funny, quirky and cute, making herself laugh, which in turn made me giggle. Her work is not known to produce such feeling but I must say I came out with a real spring in my step. That said, I must give some credit to Corey for the entertainment, as he added a lot for me. At times he almost looked bored, yawning away, but would then spring into action using his elbows and an array of multiple sticks and children’s toys, all with deadpan persona.
Although the performance as a whole was a delight from beginning to end, the standout track for me was the last in the set before the encore. ‘I shall love 2’, has quickly become my new mantra and likely to accompany me on many more bikes rides to come.
Photography by Mark Wheelwright (markwheelwright.co.uk)
