I was in two minds whether or not to go to this event, but in the end took a gamble based on the provenance of the people behind it. Part of Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown Festival (or Jarvis Downer’s Cockmelt as I prefer to call it), the gig was put together by Andy Votel, one of the movers behind last year’s terrific Jean Claude Vannier / Serge Gainsbourg gig, and a man who through his labels B Music and Finders Keepers has proved himself to be a remarkable picker upper of unconsidered weird rarities of the 60s and 70s, and the music was arranged by Sean O’Hagan, who arranged the music for the equally terrific Tropicalia gig last year, and appeared here with his band The High Llamas, supplemented by strings and sitar.
The Lost Ladies were Susan Christie, Wendy Flower, and Bonnie Dobson, and the gig began with three young British folk singers (bearded ladies as B Music likes to call them), Emma Trikka, Cate Le Bon and Jane Weaver. All 6 singers had remarkable pure clear honey-toned voices, which worked wonderfully with the warm and bouncy sounds of the High Llamas. Generally the feel and spirit was 1969, mostly folk pop Americana, with occasional moments of funk, psychedelica and country. Not quite my sort of thing, but really very pleasurable, and free from of the self satisfied matronly whimsy of other folkies of that era (eg Vashti Bunyan).
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