PETER BRODERICK | LIVE REVIEW
The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff, Thurs 13 Sept
Toby Hay is head down, his unruly curls obscuring his face as he studiously wrings melody from every millimetre of his guitar. The man from mid-Wales, with the surname so apt for his pastoral music, plays a handful of wonderful acoustic guitar folk instrumentals. Leaving Chicago, about a train ride between Chicago and Missouri, has a locomotive’s lilting propulsion, with a sound akin to earlier Ryley Walker without too many jazz detours. Starling has the lightness of spring with shades of melancholia. Toby says that he feels something is missing without his full band, and he’s imagining the other instruments in his head. No need to be so apologetic – the music fills the auditorium nicely.
Peter Broderick’s brief set begins and ends with a shaggy dog tale. First, he shares the story of his trip from his new homeland of Galway over to Cardiff, where he ended his first taxi ride due to an argumentative cabbie, then later befriended a fellow longhair who sat beside him on an otherwise underpopulated airplane. The day in Cardiff featured his first Thai massage, which he found excruciating. The set culminates with a second cover song by one of his heroes, Arthur Russell, about Eli, a simple dog.
The massage certainly worked its magic, as Broderick is more playful than I’ve seen him before, poking out his tongue at the photographer during a piano instrumental, while playing crescendos like Harold Budd on fast forward. He’s also posing for the same snapper while singing a Gaelic folk song a capella, on a walkabout – something I saw his previous collaborators Efterklang perform to great effect some years back. The latter song, a traditional ode to love with the lyric “at nights when I go to my bed of slumber” is undoubtedly influenced by his new Irish home and ends in total stillness, the singer and audience bonding in silent communion. Peter picks up the electric violin for the followup, without a tremble in his hands as he wrings more Celtic notes from the strings, alternating with dramatic and urgent bow strokes – the song sounding like an outtake from the Fargo soundtrack.
There’s a new song about Grandpa George and a genetic history of male heart trouble, delivered in an almost doowop style, with a whistling denouement. The song’s irreverence draws some chuckles. There’s also a barbershop quartet feel as he multitracks his voice and guitar chords, and here his vocals sound especially Arthur Russell-esque.
The piano is Broderick’s main instrument tonight, and he employs it to great effect on his best-known tune Below It, in a repeating note pattern beneath the lyric, “With his fingers he would push and with his fingers he would pull.” I Am Piano is the finale, where he plays with diligence and joy, adding more notes to the melody before a premature, curfew-induced end and turn out time, into the comforting coolness of an autumn evening.
words CHRIS SEAL