Category: BR Content

Words by Richard Wright / Pictures by Lucy Heath

Fresh off of her first appearance on ‘Later…with Jools Holland’, Natalie Duncan arrived on stage at The Glee Club to a warm applause of appreciation from the crowd.

Slipping straight into ‘Devil In Me’, the title track of her debut album, Duncan grabbed the audience’s attention immediately, and kept them hooked throughout the whole set; which ranged from heartfelt blues ballads to swingy Jazz pieces, each one as personal as the last.

A personal highlight was ‘Old Rock’, a bluesy song about an old drunk who used to sit in a pub Duncan worked in, in Nottingham, and used to ramble on about nothing; which turns out is a very interesting topic. “I just hope he’s still alive,” Duncan quipped.

Duncan’s piano playing was incredible, swapping from bluesy swing to spiky jazz with ease; and the relationship her backing band was great to watch.

In a rare break from the music, when we were introduced to her backing band, an audience member asked Duncan to tell us something personal. This seemed to bring the shyness out in the young 24 year old, who replied with “I haven’t got much to say…”

But I suspect, that come next year, big things will happen to this talented singer/songwriter from Nottingham; and then she will have plenty.

For more on Natalie Duncan, visit http://www.natalieduncan.com

For further listings at The Glee Club, visit http://www.glee.co.uk/birmingham-music

Words by Ed King / Pictures by Katie Foulkes http://www.kfdphotography.co.uk/

This is different. I’ve been to several gigs at the Hare and Hounds, but there’s not usually a queue; or at least, not usually one this long.

Not that there are more-people-than-ever-before, after all capacity is what it is, but they’re not often so punctual. And with the doors opening 30mins late, the snake of politely grumpy beards coils around the entire downstairs bar.

Birmingham Review last saw The Staves in April, playing at The Glee Club; and if you’re a fan of cross referencing, click here. But a lot’s happened since spring; the Staveley-Taylor trio have been supporting Bon Iver, soaked up as much festival stage as possible and flirted with national press.Plus they’ve released their debut album, ‘Dead & Born & Grown’; which is kind of why we’re all here.

My companion and I steal a Chesterfield, another drink, and watch the queue finally shuffle upstairs. ‘Mixed’, using my entire linguistic prowess, is the note I make on my pad.

After the combined time of ale, gin and tonic, we slide upstairs unperturbed to catch the end of The Staves’ tour support act – Luke Sital Singh. Sounding like Jeff Buckely (to me) and looking like Johnny Depp (to my companion) I fear for his safety. One more redeeming feature and he may not make it out the building.

The Staves walk on stage to thunderous applause, but I struggle to clap. With a plastic pint glass (plastic – glass?), a notepad, my posh parker pen, and a 2ft deficit to the sea of shoulders around me, I am limited.

I squeeze a look at the stage; Emily sits on the far left, Camilla in the centre, and Jessica on the right. Plus two new faces lurk at the back; one hidden by cymbals and the other by bass. This is another change, at least to the set up I previously saw. I write down ‘space’ and ‘backline’.

The Staves open with ‘The Motherlode’, Camilla leading the vocals that are becoming all too synonymous. ‘Icarus’ follows, with Jessica taking the wheel, whilst Emily and Camilla decorate the lead. I should at this point apologise if I cite the wrong sister or voice, but, as The Staves themselves have admitted, distinction can be tricky.

My least favourite, ‘Pay Us No Mind’, is performed next; with the backline bringing an onstage fullness to the languid album track. Jessica finger pick opens ‘In the Long Run’; a straight lead and harmony song “about touring”, something that Emily jokes “everyone can relate to”, before Camilla and ukulele deliver the softly beautiful chords of ‘Facing West’.

The Staves’ latest single, ‘Tongue Behind My Teeth’, is played next, and I find myself doing the nudge shoulder dance and clichéd foot tap. I didn’t rate this song on the album, but its live performance tonight is my highlight of the evening. Simply an excellent song, I discover; albeit embarrassingly late.

‘Mexico’ comes next, with Jessica’s vocal lead and guitar plucking a steady path through the room. Memorably, ‘Mexico’ was the first song by The Staves I ever heard; with its bold simplicity and mature lyrics embroidered over a gentle but strong melody. Enough purple prose? Bollocks to it, ‘Mexico’s an excellent song.

‘Go Wisely and Slow’ is performed next, with Emily suggesting (and all but one of the crowd agreeing) that we “stay quiet for this one”; as the Staveley-Taylors remind us what first nudged them into to the limelight.

The slightly forgettable ‘Eagle Song’ rounds off the main set, before “a Birmingham encore” keeps the sisters on stage; not that they, as Camilla ruefully points out, “could go anywhere anyway”.

The album’s title track, ‘Dead & Born & Grown’, introduces the encore, and I remember this was one of The Staves’ first compositions. It’s a short song, a lyrical fledgling – with Jessica’s six string metronome underpinning three carefully layered vocals. An artists’ sketch pad.

‘Winter Trees’ brings the set to a close; with its nostalgically dark verse, and seductive county chorus, building to dénouement. A great end track; and a fierce reminder not to pigeon hole young artists. I fight a sudden urge to drop kick Jools Holland.

The room jostles itself free, and I move over to the side of the room to mercifully lean my note pad against the wall. Scanning the drunk spider scrawl I try and sum up the set; or at least leaving the room with more than one word notations.

The Staves… The Staves… The Staves… When you’ve already written about a band, it’s sometimes a stilted process to revisit them so soon. But I know I’ve enjoyed tonight’s set much more than the one I saw in April; even despite having to stand, and use my pint glass as a writing table.

I’ve heard all these songs before, most live and all recoded, but there was something new on stage tonight. Something better. It’s not God, it’s not Ms Franklin, it’s not the musical second coming or a diatribe of platitudes; it’s just new. It’s just better. I scribble two more words onto my note pad.

And as I’m walking out the Hare & Hounds I get it. It’s not their singing, it’s their songs. Tonight I got the talent behind the voices, behind the easily grabbed badge that may oddly shadow the Staveley-Taylors. They write, and perform, some inspired compositions; with attributes beyond their ability to harmonise. A fact I hadn’t fully appreciated before.

I write ‘songwriting’ onto my notepad, click my pen, and put both in my pocket. Then I go home and listen to ‘Tongue Behind My Teeth’ on repeat.

The Staves debut album, ‘Dead & Born & Grown’, is out now – available in store and online. For more on The Staves, visit http://www.thestaves.com

For further gigs from Birmingham Promoters, visit http://birminghampromoters.com

‘Singing, writing and playing piano at around 5 years-old’, today aged 24; Natalie Duncan is now the proud matriarch of her own album – ‘Devil in Me’.

Nearly two decades after the Surrey born singer-songwriter “realised I was a bit obsessive about music”, Duncan’s 14 track debut was released on Verve Records in July this year.

Described by her website as ‘soul, classical and jazz infused compositions’, ‘Devil in Me’ is also heralded with ‘huge crossover pop potential’; despite the source’s reticence to the mainstream genre.

Citing influence from Freddie McGregor, Pink Floyd, Gil Scott Heron, Professor Longhair and Sly & Robbie; Natalie Duncan says “I guess my music has an element of soul and songwriting, but also melody and misery.”

Her eponymous debut EP – ‘Natalie Alexis Duncan’, which preceded her album by three years, won the attention of Simon Gavin from Decca Records. And after a reportedly year long persuasion, Gavin finally signed Duncan to Verve, the Decca imprint; bringing in musician and producer – Joe Henry, to turn Duncan’s 8 track demos into a commercial release.

Despite initial doubts about being tied to a record label, Duncan states she is now “glad I’m with a label that basically sent me off to do exactly what I wanted to do, and make the record I wanted to make without interference.”

Since signing to Verve, Duncan has released her first single through the label, ‘Sky is Falling’, and has collaborated with both Magnetic Man and Goldie; the latter inviting her to be part of his Goldie’s Band – By Royal Appointment programme for the BBC.

Natalie Duncan also features on Goldie’s single, ‘Freedom’, released on Metalheadz in April this year.

Now touring the UK, Natalie Duncan comes to The Glee Club (Studio) on Dec 4^th.

For more details on the gig, along with other listings for The Glee Club, visit http://www.glee.co.uk/birmingham-music

For more on Natalie Duncan, visit http://www.natalieduncan.com

Words by Ed King / Photos by Katja Ogrin http://www.katjaogrinphotography.com

There should be more people here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s shoulder to shoulder from the sound desk to the stage, but I expected a full room tonight. I’ve seen the interest Akala can create, and I’m disappointed to still see space at the back.

Akala is back in Birmingham promoting his new mixtape/album, ‘Knowledge is Power – Vol 1’; playing in the Academy 3. And immediately he wants us, all of us, telling us to ‘get both your hands in the air’, ‘make some fucking noise’ and show him ‘that Birmingham sound, from the gut’. Everyone from the sound desk forward explodes in a cheer.

Starting with ‘Welcome to Dystopia’, the Orwellian opening track from his 2010 album ‘DoubleThink’, Akala warns us in five words; ‘conform, obey, transform, sleep easy’. The pace is furious, urgent, and I’m curious to see how long he can hold it.

Without pause, we are shoved into ‘Freedom Lasso’, Akala’s 2007 single about the complicit chains of society, before ‘XXL’ gets most of the crowd singing. It seems Akala’s not the only one who knows all the words.

Next the 26 year old ‘rapper, label owner and educator’ questions his contemporaries with ‘What is Real?’, a satirical dig at the role of rap in modern culture, before launching into ‘Bullshit’ – a track that clearly answers his own question.

‘Absolute Power’ brings us the first new track of the night, giving the crowd another chance to show how much homework they’ve done, and slows the pace for the first time; before Akala delivers his ‘Sprint’ – a machine gun message of social injustice. Calculated lyrics over a needle point pentameter; it’s like listening to Das FX with a dictionary.

The slightly weak link of ‘Roll Wid Us’ brings the beat back down, and sounds a little like a Bond theme tune, before the painfully personal ‘Fire in the Booth’ gets spat off the stage; a linguistically delivered assault on the hypocrisy of class, racial stratification and the divide and rule approach of a still present empire. If you do nothing else today, find and listen to this song. Or better still read the lyrics.

The rest of the set continues to teach, preach and educate. Intelligent rhymes about misogyny, state brutality, the illusion of money, and the self-perpetuating self-destruction promulgated by modern Hip Hop, all get kicked angrily off stage.

Akala’s message is astute, frustrated, and sometimes incongruously aggressive. But when he warns the crowd ‘you’re taught to act inferior and play position perfectly’, I am heartened by how many young people are listening.

And whilst the promoter in me still shakes his head at a room unfairly under capacity, whilst Jay Z, Kanye West and Drake cram out the LG Arena; the term ‘sold out’ couldn’t be further from my mind.

For more on Akala, including the last dates of his UK tour, visit http://www.akalamusic.com

‘Knowledge is Power – Vol 1’ is also available at http://www.akalamusic.com

For further gig listings at the O2 Academy in Birmingham, visit http://www.o2academybirmingham.co.uk

Akala, aka Kingslee Daley, released his first single in 2003 – ‘Welcome to England’, a track that would again feature on the artists’ debut ‘War’ mixtape in 2004.

Akala’s latest mixtape, ‘Knowledge is Power – Vol 1’, was released in May this year, seeing the London born rapper, poet and Edutainment emcee tour the UK; performing at the 02 Academy in Birmingham on Nov 26^th.

Arguably a bastion of intelligence and education, in a music industry that often resorts to MTV glamour and X Factor aspirations, Akala uses his art to explore ‘race, class, sexism, history, war, hip-hop culture and what it is to live in a world one knows to be inherently unequal.’

His current three studio albums, four mixtape and fourteen single releases, have all ‘reflected Akala’s personal struggles’ – using a considered blend of words, pentametre and ‘harsh truths’ to deliver his message through ‘barbed comedic satire’.

Citing Gill Scott Heron, Saul Williams, KRS One and Wu Tan Clan as inspirations, Akala’s commentary on social conditioning – and challenges to the political mandates of ignorance, distraction and a divide and conquer governance, are a prominent thread to his work.

And whilst his many literary influences, including continued references to Stratford’s Bard, have earned him the moniker ‘the rap Shakespearean’, Akala also claims his lyrics reflect inwards; poking fun at his own ‘furrowed brow reputation’ and understanding that sometimes ‘heavy topics need to be got across lightly’.

An energetic on stage performer (Birmingham Review last saw Akala at The Flyover Show 4 in 2011), Akala was awarded the ‘Best Hip Hop Act’ at the 2006 MOBO Awards.

His debut studio album, ‘It’s Not A Rumour’ – released on Akala’s own Illa State Records, gained significant attention; becoming a counterpoint to the mysognanism and money centric attitudes of many more widely promulgated Hip Hop.

On this reception, Akala’s website states his ‘refusal and inability to conform to prevailing stereotypes means that his records are largely ignored by the sections of the media that proclaim to speak authentically of the “urban experience”’.

Akala also founded The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company in 2008, a production company that ‘offers young people a different view of the arts and ultimately themselves; through education programmes, live music events and music theatre’.

Akala performs at the 02 Academy in Birmingham on Monday Nov 26^th. For information and tickets on this, and further gigs at the 02 Academy in Birmingham, visit http://www.o2academybirmingham.co.uk/event/46168/akala-tickets

For more on Akala, including his latest mixtape release ‘Knowledge is Power – Vol 1’, visit http://www.akalamusic.com

For more on The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, visit http://www.hiphopshakespeare.com