Brightblack Morning Light - London Cargo - 15/5/07
2/5
By: Chris O'Toole
The back story is all there for Brightblack Morning Light. Both of the bands key protagonists, Nathan Shineywater and Rachel Hughes, are descended from American Indians in some ambiguous fashion and both claim to live in tents or cabins, depending on the climate, in their home state of California. This brief biography is already charming enough to attract the attention of passing urbanites, evoking as it does vague notions of rural escape, distinguished heritage and general artistic detachment from contemporary society. But it is when one learns the band is championed by Will Oldham, who once took them on tour with him, it becomes apparent why Brightblack Morning Light are gaining the exposure they presently enjoy. As it is the band champion a natural, ecological hegemony; one that excludes the trappings of the ultra-capitalist society we all, apparently, battle to keep at bay each waking hour, in favour of a more sedate, languid existence. Theirs is a world trapped in a sort of stasis, neither living nor dying; hovering on comatose and barely breathing.
However despite these stylistic aims the music Brightblack Morning Light produce does not translate well to a wet Tuesday evening in East London. Having dragged their swamp-folk sound half way around the world to a stage at the fashionable Cargo one would expect, at worst, a show. At least the band would play with a little more verve, a little more vigor, a little more vitality than on their self titled album? No. That is not to be the case this evening. Instead, as Brightblack Morning Light take the stage in a cold room, with even less than that for atmosphere, the audience is treated to a note for note rendition of their album. Its tumble weed chord structures are faithfully reproduced, meandering across the rostrum before dying and decaying under the heat of the sun. Their set largely flows as one. Hughes, on the Fender Rhodes, roams off in the required direction and is followed by muted guitar and hushed tympani. Everything is whispered and minimal, as if waiting for one overarching atmospheric to emerge, but instead they always remain restrained and distant, failing to connect with the crowd; lost in a world of indecision. Throughout Shineywater, on vocals, murmurs hazy prophecies, all rainbows, shifting sand and aquatic splendour, but no one in the crows seems unduly concerned, even aware, and when they do stop playing it takes the audience several seconds to acclimatize to the change.
There is a sort of tepid beauty hanging around the band, especially given the gigantic kaleidoscopic backdrop, suggesting a form of tired nostalgia for glorious times now beyond reach, but this is not enough to capture the imagine live on stage. This is the sound of the worlds slowest funk band, playing the morning after and underwater, with a heavy come down and a tiresome hangover thrown in for good measure. This is an empty chamber music, each member of the group unaware of another and all unaware of the audience. Perhaps those in a form of catatonic suffering may find solace here, but as the crowd files out, those still amongst the living find little or nothing to remember.
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