Album: NALLE – The Siren’s Wave (Locust Music 109 2008)

Nalle (Finnish for ‘little bear’) are a Glasgow based avant-folk trio led by Anglo-Finn Hanna Tuulikki. The Siren’s Wave is their second album, following on from 2006’s By Chance Upon Waking. Using a bewildering array of instrumentation, ranging from analogue Moogs and oscillators to bouzouki, harmonium, clarinet and viola, they craft loose, drone and raga based elemental folk music. This is not the sort of stuff you’ll hear in an upstairs room at a rural pub on a Tuesday night – certainly not in this form.

The Siren’s Wave consists of six lengthy pieces, dominated by Tuulikki’s, by turn angelic and rasping, voice. Tracks unfurl slowly, and the instrumentation can be doggedly out there at times, with an accordion drone, some seemingly random plucks of the dulcimer, and melodies that form and then disappear. It can sound unsettling and chaotic – almost anti-music – but then suddenly flower into something gorgeous. Sometimes it seems that it is only the viola of the One Ensemble’s Aby Vulliamy and the bouzouki of Chris Hladowski that keeps it from floating off into the ether.

The first three tracks are particularly challenging, and suffer a little from a lack of variation in pace and structure. The second half of the record is more grounded and eclectic. “Secret of the Seven Sirens” is equipped with a melody you can whistle and some fine ensemble singing (a strong suit of the group’s which is underused in the first half of the album), and even breaks into what sounds like a Balkan dance midway through. “Alice’s Ladder” is a fragile little thing that leads into the final track “First Eden Sank to Grief”, which features some marvellous polyphonic chanting from the trio. It’s a beautiful end to an album that can be a bit frustrating at times. If all the tracks were as good as the final three, then The Siren’s Wave would be something very special indeed.

Tracks
1 Nothing Gold Can Stay 5:10
2 Young Light 8:11
3 Voi Ruusuni (A Rose) 10:31
4 Secret of the Seven Sirens 10:18
5 Alice’s Ladder 3:31
6 First Eden Sank to Grief 6:32

Website
http://www.myspace.com/nallemusic

 

Gig: Nalle / Tattie Toes / Wooden Box – Glasgow, Mono, 12/08/2007

After last week’s drenching it was good to see something indoors. Wooden Box is actually a solo singer/songwriter plus guitar, adopting the recent tradition of solo artists giving themselves band names. Singers with guitars are everywhere these days, laying bare their souls. It’s hard to get too annoyed with them because, by and large, they are inoffensive. But they are like bloggers – convinced everybody wants to hear their opinions/feelings. Before I lapse completely into self-parody, I’ll just say that he was OK. Chilled but not twee. His song about Oban was nice, but a bit chocolate boxy. He’s obviously not spent too much time in the town.

There seemed quite a crowd in to see Tattie Toes. Dreadful name, and an incredibly annoying band. They lined up bass, violin, drums and vocals and musically had some good ideas, with some good grooves established at times. But they are one of those bands that mistakes being wacky for experimentalism. The singer had a good set of pipes, but was continuously putting on silly voices. There was a nice track when the drummer played concertina, and many of the songs had good moments – usually when the singer sang straight or zipped it. They got an encore which made me wonder if my ears needed servicing.

Nalle were just great. The set wasn’t too different to the last time I saw them at the Panopticon. Indeed, neither was its execution. It’s strange that a trio based in Glasgow, with surnames of Hladowski, Tuulikki and Vulliamy, and whose instruments include the bouzouki,  sound so English, but they do. By that, I mean the England of Francis Childe (I know he was American), Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams – of ballads set beneath the greenwood tree. It’s not folk music in the real ale and beards sense, but something that seems to connect with the spirit of rural England. On the surface they are worlds apart, but Nalle definitely have echoes of the likes of the Copper Family and the Watersons, even though their concerns seem much more elemental and focussed on the natural world rather than serving maids and jolly ploughmen. Hanna has a breathtaking voice, but it’s when she sings in harmony with Chris and Aby that the real magic happens.

Downer was the couple of tables of Glasgow’s self-styled scenesters who thought their conversation was much more interesting to the room than whatever was happening on stage. It’s a question that has vexed me all my life, but why do people pay money for a ticket to see a band, only to talk all the way through the set? Are they just there to be seen, or are they so insecure that they are terrified that if they stop talking everyone will ignore them and they will have to face their futile existence alone? Who knows – but they are fucking annoying.

Gig: Colleen / Nalle / Phosphene – Britannia Panopticon, Glasgow (20/06/2007)

This show was certainly a little out of the ordinary. The Britannia Panopticon is a small, old style music hall, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. In fact, it claims to be the oldest of the few surviving music halls in the world. In its pomp it was a slightly smaller version of Leeds’ City Varieties, but it is in a fairly sad state and in desperate need of funds to restore it to its full glory. For more details visit the Britannia Panopticon Trust’s website. The galleries are in no fit state to house people, so the safe capacity of the venue is only around fifty or sixty. For this reason, there were two shows today – all proceeds going to the Trust.

I attended the first at the disorientatingly early hour of 4.30 (in the afternoon, obviously). The show lasted a little over two hours, but a lot was packed in. Phosphene is Glasgow-based BBC producer and Syd Barrett fan John Cavanagh. His wildly eclectic music could very broadly be described as radiophonic free folk. The first couple of tunes involved clarinet and Delia Derbyshire type analogue electronics, including a bizarre cover of Barrett’s “Rats” that sounded like the Silver Apples on something stronger than cough medicine. The final tune saw Cavanagh singing an old sea shanty accompanied by an improvising guitar, soprano sax and viola trio. It was slightly wayward, and a little awkward, but nevertheless affecting.

Before Nalle’s main set, Hanna Tuulikki, accompanied by Cécile Schott (aka Colleen), performed a short extract from her Glasgow School of Art instillation, “Salutation To The Sun”. The piece involved her gathering recordings of thirty different songbird species native to Scotland. She halved the speed of the recordings and mimicked the birds’ calls, gradually multi-tracking her own vocals into an approximation of the dawn chorus. On paper that may seem a little dull, but to watch her whistling casually into the microphone and hear it build into a chorus of birdsong was impressive.

If that was good, her band were nothing short of awesome. Hanna plays guitar, an accordion-like instrument called a shruti box (I’m told) and recorder, Chris Hladowski bouzouki and clarinet and Aby Vulliamy viola. All three sing. Hanna’s voice is a thing of wonder. It has a rasp to it, with a Scandinavian lilt and as near perfect pitch as makes no difference. Comparisons could be made to Joanna Newsom and Björk, but her voice is just as distinctive in its own right as either of those two. Chris and Aby are no mean singers themselves, and the trio’s harmonies are spot on. Nalle’s music incorporates elements of a lot of different kinds of European folk tradition, but they never sound dry and academic about it. Equally, there is an amount of improvisation and experimentation, but the song always remains supreme. They could improve their stagecraft a little. On several occasions, Hanna was scrabbling around on the floor looking for something whilst still in full song – but off mike! There was one funny moment when she seemed to be desperately trying to communicate something to Aby whilst both women were in full voice. It looked quite comical. Nalle’s album By Chance Upon Waking came out on Pickled Egg last year. It’s very good – but tonight they were quite breathtaking.

A brief three clarinet piece played by John, Chris and Cécile preceded Colleen’s set. She played five pieces – three for a six-string cello-like instrument called a viola da gamba and one each for clarinet and guitar. Her trademark thing is to play short snatches, sample and layer them, building up a constantly shifting whole. The loops may be of differing length, and so they change subtly in relation to one another. Canadian guitarist Michael Brook is usually cited as the first to employ this method of making music. I’ve seen others try it with varying degrees of success. It’s main advantage is that one person can play a complex piece without resorting to using prerecorded material. Everything heard has been played live during the performance. There are those disconcerting Milli Vanilli moments when the performer stops, but the music doesn’t, but you get used to those. One pitfall is the tendency to chuck in too much, leading to a cacophony. Colleen always keeps things simple enough to make it possible to imagine that all this is being played live. It was hugely enjoyable. It just felt like a little bit of an anti-climax following Nalle. To be fair, very little wouldn’t.

It was all over well before 7. I’d have been more than happy to queue for the 7.30 show, but the tickets for that one had all been snapped up. It was a great way to spend two hours. It was thoughtfully programmed, and a lot was crammed into the time. The money raised goes to a very good cause. It will be fantastic to see the Panopticon restored to its former glory.