This show took place on 2/12/2023
Folk can be confusing.
I remember when I was younger, my mum would shuffle around the house on Sunday mornings to the sweet, forboding tunes of Belle & Sebastien or Arcade Fire. The Boy With The Arab Strap easing gently from the stereo as the city woke up around us. There was something about her indie sensibilities in the late 90s and 00s that drew her towards large orchestral sounds, The Big Music if you will, that took the small and the sentimental and made it larger than life.
Within those groups though there was a folk rock influence that was rarely shyed away from, and an appreciation of the balance between the small, stripped back music, and the large soundscapes that they also embraced.
Nowhere was this play between big and small more evident than on Saturday night at Crofters Rights. Since opening their second stage Crofters has been home to an even more diverse selection of shows, with Saturday’s gig providing a whistlestop tour of some of the hottest indie & folk influenced acts in the Gloucester Road scene right now.
The brilliant Eva Penny opened up the show, alone on the stage playing to a room of twenty-odd, she continually made references to her life which only her friends in the audience would understand fully, but gave the rest of us enough of a glimpse into her personal adventures to see the authentic place these songs come from.
She opened with 40 Minutes, and guitar work to die for. She sang over a walking bassline with textural notes above it that teased what was to come. And when she and her song were ready, the guitar opens up into a beautiful flourish for a chorus, complimented by her vocals in the way only Miss Penny’s voice can. She ends it with a punishing refrain of “I just want to fall in love”.
Other highlights included Orange Mood, with a playback track that droned behind Eva’s heartfelt words. The sounds of kids playing in the distance like Belle & Seb’s own If You’re Feeling Sinister. She finished with The Chain of Events That The Bicycle Started, itself a microcosm of the songs we’d been hearing throughout.
Switching between soaring, gorgeous vocal melodies and quick English sing-speaking, Miss Penny is able to capture a mood that is tender, but never brittle, rather affirming of herself, and the world at large.
After a short break Willow Xena took to the stage for what was her debut gig. Alongside a three piece band, her first song was called Father, which she begins like a bird of prey, looming over the audience with haunting occult stylisation, a distant beating drum and vocal line. This hangs for a moment, before kicking into a rocker that Willow drives forward with each line.
Nuns is introduced as a tale of catholic atrocities, and plays like an evil version of Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing, further colouring Willow’s distinctly irish folk rock painting. Among the highlights of the evening though was Muse, a scathing sanction of the indie rock male gaze.
Its opening lines – Don’t take me for granted/Just take me to your summer house/Build a shrine in my honour, cut through the pretense and set the tone its biting chorus.
The repeated refrain I only exist for the taking/I only exist in a painting, is performed with fierce, witchy overtones. So Muse’s subversion of control and presumed power makes it the centrepiece of an already powerhouse first gig.
The band have to get their due too, and are let off the leash in the second half, with previously restrained guitar ringing loud and true, and extensive exemplary bass work through The Crow and a protracted version of Wedding Bells.
In the interval between Willow Xena and Nile Robinson I was accosted by some of the wonderful Saturday night clientele of Crofters Rights primarily for some drugs, though also to discuss the record deal he turned down in 2003. He was nice enough though, and I didn’t provide him with any narcotics.
Soon enough I returned to the safe harbour of Nile Robinson and his band opening up what would become a raucous set. Wearing a polaroid photograph in his guitar’s headstock, an electro-acoustic Gretsch, the country duo set about tearing the house down with a series of uptempo bangers.
In his cuban heels Nile sang soulfully, his guitar chasing him down the alleyways the songs seem to have been born in. Alongside him his drummer Finn sat over his muted drums, always watching Nile, sometimes like a proud mother, sometimes like a loyal sergeant, waiting for his captain’s next move.
Nile eventually reveals the polaroid in his headstock is the missing bassist, apparently dying in the Spanish dustbowl. Owing to this their chemistry is sensational, and tips us off to the play at the heart of their performance.
Nile begins to tell stories, and he begins to open up before slamming the door in the face of the audience, either kicking into another tune or deferring to his drummer who simply defers back to Nile. The bassist dying in the Spanish dustbowl (he is missing, but of course not strictly for this reason) was just one occasion of half truths being revealed while maintaining an air of rock and roll mystery.
But as soon as Nile starts singing, the mystery melts away, leaving us with an earnestness that, when juxtaposed with his stage presence, makes for a compelling level of honesty and openness.
Through a passionate version of Hard Times by Gillian Welch the show comes to an end, Nile says ‘Good night’, and we all shuffle out.
The evening was ultimately characterised by folk stylings in three distinct languages. Eva Penny’s lo-fi, English, tender interpretation was at total odds with Willow Xena’s striking Irish, occultish rock and roll.
To tie a bow on the evening, Nile Robinson brought his American music, with a soulful country influence, he brought us in, then chucked us out with a smile, into the cold Bristol night.
Eva Penny and Nile Robinson are both available to listen to on Spotify, and Nile Robinson will be playing at Crofters Rights 2 again on the 8th of December.
HAZE TRANSMISSIONS 