Le Guess Who? 2014, Various Venues, Utrecht - Day 4 (2.0)

Let the last day of the four-day Le Guess Who? festival commence, and how better to start a Sunday than with Owen Pallett? The heartbroken Owen, apparently, and a lonesome lad on stage as well, as the lonely sweet thing has been temporarily abandoned by his drummer, as he’s having a little baby (congratulations!). Don’t worry Owen, the audience lets him know that it’s going to be sad along with you, and the violinist acknowledges that by playing what he feels is the saddest song he can possibly play to wrap it all up: ‘The Passions’ from his latest album In Conflict.

The set starts out pretty heavy on older material though, and later we come to understand the reason why, as apparently his latest songs are more reliant on his drummer companion. Who is absent. And thus are these songs. Not all of them though, as he manages to squeeze in ‘Song for Five & Six’ for example. It makes for an admittedly unexpected set, but Owen reassures us by saying that it’s at least in some ways special as his heartache is a good thing for the concert. At least the concert seems to be good for him, as he on occasion seems to smile as he hits the right note at exactly the right time, and some of the violin solos do seem to have a little bit of extra oomph in them.

So no drummer, okay, but there’s plenty of Owen to go around. Owen playing the synth, Owen singing, Owen strumming the violin, Owen tapping the violin, Owen playing the violin: it’s all on loop and it’s all going on at exactly the same time. The man plays something, pushes the right buttons on his pedal, and he starts playing something else whilst what he just did is going on loop underneath the live action. And so he builds intricate webs of Owen, and the man is quality, so that’s not a bad thing at all. All the songs are oh so very clever, though if there’s one criticism, it is that in the early part of the set some of the narratives are hard to follow as his vocals aren’t cutting through all the instrumental looping as clearly as needed for actual understanding. Later on his lovely voice can be heard a bit more cleanly, and so we can also follow the stories next to enjoying his musical craftsmanship, which is a win-win if there ever was one.

Mdou Moctar is from Africa, Niger to be more precise, though the band does not play typical African sounds. Actually, he plays the guitar, and pretty brilliantly at that. The trio have got a nifty blues rock ’n roll thing going in, with the rhythm guitar and the drums putting down a tight and catchy canvas on top of which the lead guitarist is going to play some rock ‘n roll with a whole lotta soul. And let there be no mistaken, the guys can play. It sounds really tight, and the guitar playing is fast and furious and definitely of quality. The singing is still in a language that probably no one in the audience can understand (which always makes me slightly tense, because what if they’re scolding like mothersomethings or whatever? Has anyone checked up on that? Should there be a parental guidance warning here?), but nothing gets lost in translation as far as the playing goes.

Yes, there is a language barrier in the sense that where other musicians happily engage in some chitter-chatter with the audience, these three guys mutter a quick “thank you” or “merci” and then it’s just one slow wait until they’ve got the settings right on the guitar. When they play, though, they’re making up for time. When the last song begins, the audience nearly explodes, as it’s so fast & catchy that people just have a hard time not moving to the drums and guitar combo. Which is no small feat, as anyone who has ever played a “hostile” crowd will tell you, with hostile in the sense that most people will not know any of your songs. Africa is represented with vigour.

Tune-Yards certainly approves of that. Frontwoman Garbus wants to thank the festival for putting on so many sounds of the world. Sounds that no doubt also inspired her, for her sound is deliciously eclectic, and at times sounds more African than that of Mdou Moctar who played the same stage just moments before. There’s a lot going on out there, with the bass, multiple percussion elements, and of course the background singers who are living it up back there like there’s no tomorrow. Add to that the colourful attire of all of them, the face paint, extra decorations, and it all provides just this huge amount of positive energy that cannot be contained.

Not that it’s all cheery-go-lucky, as some of the songs do have one or two things they want to mention. “We come from a land of slaves / Let’s go Red Skins. Let’s go Braves!”, she shouts out during the by FIFA 15 selected song ‘Waterfountain’, which definitely is one of the “easier” ones musically with all the rhythmic percussion that track has going on. In another song she says that someone gave her a “bloodsoaked dollar”, though, she mentions as an aside, “it’s okay, it still works in the store”. Biting her tongue she is not. Truth be told, everyone gathered would be massively disappointed if she would. She has always been a strong presence on stage, but now with the extra band members and all the extra theatre going on the band just feels as a force to be reckoned with. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they’re all playing everything up though, everyone on stage adds something to the songs in terms of different layers and sounds as well, which makes the show not only entertaining to watch, but also giving those craving complex music their money’s worth.

St. Vincent, blimey, she’s really become a DAME, hasn’t she? She just owns it up, having really crafted her character carefully for this tour. She’s like the android from the future, singing and telling stories about the human experience from a relatively alienated point of view. But like Bowie’s alien, this lady stardust can rock and roll like no other. The guitars are piercing, the synths are blowing it all up, and amongst all of that her voice is pitch perfect and asks us how we can be so casually cruel. Next to all of the rock and roll she also adds a dash of pop and a smither of performance art, all culminating in the must-see show doing the rounds this year.

That trifecta of pop songs that she starts with is just about the strongest thing currently going around. In ‘Rattlesnake’ she hilariously mimes running whilst staying in total control of her voice, in ‘Digital Witness’ she’s got some choreographed moves going on with her synth player, and on ‘Casually Cruel’ she says the most heartbreaking things on top of the most upbeat guitar riff she could possibly think of. It is a magnificent start, and one that simply gets stronger and stronger every time I see them live. In between the songs she tells us some weird and wonderful tales about things we have in common with each other, doing this in such a way that it kind of reminds me of the artist Miranda July. She has truly become an all-round entertainer and artiste, and it will almost be a sad day when she retires this tour to go forward to a following album.