Eastern Promise
Platform, Glasgow
01/10/2010

An innovative line-up over two nights, Eastern Promise aims to bring an interesting selection of musicians to the Easterhouse community of Glasgow. And up first is Wounded Knee a.k.a. vocal artist Drew Wright, who performs a capella into sampler pedals and turns The Blue Nile’s ‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ into a timeless folk song. Berlin composer and pianist Nils Frahm is next; drawing the listener in with one insistent note before intimidating a noisy latecomer. The beauty of his work lies in the deceptive simplicity of his restrained yet emotive piano improvisations, and he ends on a duet with Rachel Grimes, who describes him as a kindred musical spirit. With her neo-classical Rachels project in “deep hibernation”, the Kentucky pianist has released ‘Book Of Leaves’, a collection of 14 pieces inspired by a retreat to a woodland cabin. She performs them all tonight, and sampled birdsong and trickling streams conjure the atmosphere of the forest where they were composed. Folk singer Josephine Foster and her husband Victor Herrero finally round off the first evening with their interpretations of traditional Spanish songs, as collected by the poet Federico García Lorca. There is a timeless quality to these tracks, they invoke the Sierra or the flamenco caves of Granada with heel stomp percussion and hand claps.

The following day, Human Don’t Be Angry (Malcolm Middleton’s new project) highlights the ex-Arab Strap man’s skills as a guitarist. He begins tentatively with an instrumental called ‘Midnight Noodles’, then builds a vocal loop that makes you wish you were a director so that he could soundtrack your film. Next, RM Hubbert plays acoustic guitar with a complex technique that encompasses influences as diverse as Flamenco and the movements made by his dog jumping in the snow. He channels emotional ideas into instrumentals rather than songs, admitting that as a Scottish man he’s not the best communicator. Found are up next; a three-piece whose sound is a mix of garage rock and glitchy electronica. They cram in lyrics about subatomic particles and Vincent Gallo, finally finding their disco groove on ‘Let Fidelities Break’. King Creosote, our Sunday headliners, is Kenny Anderson and his ever evolving band, which tonight features an African drum and fellow Fence Collective member Gummi Bako on extra acoustic guitar. And this is a more laid back KC than The Fly has seen in a while. With an emphasis on his Fence back catalogue – songs including ‘Homeboy’, ‘Klutz’ and ‘Twin Tub Twin’ are mixed in with the more recent ‘Not One Bit Ashamed’ and ‘Cockleshell’. To sing his praises too much seems to give Anderson a complex, but he really is the most consistently entertaining Scottish artist around at the moment. As the band batter into ‘You’ve No Clue Do You’ everything is just right, and even when it all goes wrong, such as the odd missed cue for electronics, it’s handled with good humour and humility. And as the band end on The Aliens‘ ‘The Happy Song’, it’s impossible to be anything but.

Lucy Brouwer