Audiobooks – supporting Courtney Barnett for a three-night run, including the Tramshed in Cardiff tonight – continue to stake a serious claim to being the weirdest pop band around. Couples rarely come odder than Evangeline Ling and David Wrench – the former a plummy-voiced sometime model, the latter a production whizz and keyboard wizard who looks like a character from Lord Of The Rings – and they barely acknowledge each other’s presence on stage, yet the curious chemistry in their unlikely partnership is evident.
Wrench’s responsibility is to lay down backing tracks over which Ling can talk, whisper, ramble, shriek and sometimes sing about everything from Henry Hoovers and stealing fishtanks to philistines who don’t know the difference between Manet and Monet. Forget all those aspirational postpunk poseurs – the wildly imaginative and unpredictable Ling is the true heir to Mark E Smith’s crown. Together, Audiobooks are sort-of-but-not-really like Fat White Family covering The Human League; they’re sort-of-but-not-really like a surrealist art-school Arab Strap, with Wrench occupying Malcolm Middleton’s role and Ling sharing Aidan Moffat’s appetite for seediness (see Blue Tits in particular).
The ratio of bangers to bonkers monologues could be higher – it’s a shame that Hot Salt and Friends In The Bubble Bath from their debut album have been ditched, at least for tonight – but Audiobooks remain resolutely uncategorisable and all the more fascinating for it.
Courtney Barnett, by contrast, can be confidently filed under indie rock. The Australian should be credited as one of a number of female singer-songwriters – Sharon Van Etten, Snail Mail, Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, Soccer Mommy, Lucy Dacus – to have saved the ailing genre from a dismal death at the hands of pale, stale and male bands with nothing new to say.
Over the course of a couple of EPs and three full-length albums, Barnett has won herself a fervent following. There’s no great secret to her success: just solid-gold songs; lyrics characterised by wry humour and raw, emotional honesty that rarely fails to strike a chord; and a humility that stands in stark contrast to the hubris of so many musicians. In the live environment, it helps that she has a kick-ass band behind her: long-time accomplices Bones Sloane (bass) and Dave Mudie (drums) plus, on keys and percussion, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, who produced her latest album.
That record, 2021’s Things Take Time, Take Time, is more musically muted than previous offerings – perhaps a hangover from her break-up with fellow musician Jen Cloher and/or a reflection of the fact that it was written and recorded in the shadow of the pandemic. But the songs truly come alive in the live environment: opening pair Rae Street and Sunfair Sundown; sweetly charming set-closer Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To; single Before You Gotta Go, a stunner to wrap up the encore.
There are also myriad opportunities for Barnett to show off her considerable guitar-playing chops under the strobe lighting and indulge her inner Kurt Cobain – not least on Nameless, Faceless, a blunt, furious diatribe on the daily dangers that women face in public places. There’s humour too, in Depreston’s sardonic commentary on gentrification and getting older, and in the frank confession with which Lance Jr begins: “I masturbated to the songs you wrote … Doesn’t mean I like you, man / It just helps me get to sleep / And it’s cheaper than temazepam”.
From start to finish, the sold-out show is a mutual love-in. “Sometimes I don’t know what to say”, Barnett admits between songs with a smile. “I’m just so glad we get to do this.” On a raucous Pedestrian At Best, she issues a warning: “Put me on a pedestal / I’ll only disappoint you.” We did, and were far from disappointed here. “COURTNEY, YOU’RE SO FUCKING GOOD!” bellows a voice from the back of the room, and there’s not a single person squeezed into the venue who would disagree.
Tramshed, Cardiff, Wed 29 June
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos KEVIN PICK
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