OFF//KILTER | LIVE REVIEW
Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama, Cardiff, Sat 7 Oct
Off//Kilter stands out as a highlight in a revised, staggered approach to Swn, Cardiff’s annual celebration of your-new-favourite musicians, prominent for its strong line-up and novel choice of venue, amidst a variety of events taking place through September and October. The venue, indeed, is a highlight in its own right, with acts such as the sparkling young singer Rhain making full use of the astonishing acoustics afforded by the high-ceilinged Dora Stoutzker Hall.
Musicians alternate between performing in the cedar-lined chamber hall and the College’s glass-encased foyer, with both spaces offering the performers different opportunities to enchant a small but rapt audience. Local electronica act Cotton Wolf fill the large reception space with their pulsing electronica, and are joined by local dancer and RWCMD teacher Kim Noble. She flows gracefully around the room, providing a visual element to the throbbing beats, as the evening light fades on the trees hanging behind the stage.
Back in the concert hall, Ed Dowie adds a dash of levity to proceedings, chuckling nervously about living up to the term ‘theatrical’, with which he was described in the show’s promotional blurb. Dowie’s humorous addresses between songs are quite at odds with the delicately solemn tone he adopts when singing, his chorus pedal-enhanced vocals and sparse piano combining in mesmeric fashion. An evocative cover of Billy Bragg’s Between The Wars sits seamlessly between songs from his own debut The Uncle Sold.
It’s probably safe to say that the pristine stage of the College’s concert hall has rarely before been home to an act of such powerful delivery and novelty of approach as Richard Dawson [pictured], tonight’s headliner. Beginning his set with one of a number of unaccompanied folk renditions, he presents an early opportunity for those before him to fully appreciate the dexterity of his vocals, which pinball between falsetto highs and near-bellowed lows. Eyes screwed shut and fists balled, during his a capella songs, Dawson’s intense delivery is offset by his often-hilarious ramblings between tracks. Whether delivering ages-old folk songs about shepherding or his own material, which hops from modern settings to medieval without a hint of a care for convention, the Newcastle-born musician is never less than relentlessly entertaining.
The set’s high point is, undoubtedly, a stirring rendition of Soldier, one of Dawson’s own works. Taken from this summer’s full-length, Peasant, it showcases Dawson at his most boiled-down and accessible, but also provides a perfect example of his ability to fill his songs with fascinating, absorbing narrative; when Dawson bellows the pay-off line “My heart is full of hope,” as the character embodied in the song finds his courage, every soul in the audience is roused, sharing in the titular soldier’s buoyant cheer.
words and photos HUGH RUSSELL