Friday 21st November 2008: Unitarian Church, New Road, Brighton The Jules Franks Band / Alan O’Rourke / Enrick Adam
I reviewed the Album CAN WE RETURN TO THE HEART ] by Jules Franks just over a year ago. In the intervening time I have revisited to that record several times and am happy to say that it has in no way palled on me. It has taken the intervening period for Jules to get a performing band together and rehearse it to a standard where he was happy to make a live appearance. I can tell you now that this long wait has been well worth while.
The venue – Brighton’s Unitarian Church – provides a small but attractive space so the impression on arrival was that this was going to be a promising night out. As I entered, French guitarist Enrick Adam was already underway with his set. I was immediately in no doubt about the veracity of the advertised description of this guy as being a virtuoso – he plays the Spanish/Classical style acoustic instrument very efficiently indeed with a just enough variation to escape from being side-lined into the Windham Hill/Coda style ambient/chill ghetto. But it was when he turned to a semi-acoustic instrument and used a combination of clever picking with percussive effects on the sound-box to produce some very exciting avant-garde music that he really impressed this cynical observer.
Next up was the Irish Singer-Songwriter Alan O’Rourke. Regular readers will know that this is not my favourite genre of music, so I was not necessarily expecting anything particularly startling. I’m happy to report that once again my jaundiced preconception was totally unjustified. Alan is unclassifiable by any usual terms of categorisation, so I shall have to resort to a series of comparisons with easily recognisable landmarks of good taste to tell you what he was like! His basic voice and accent is somewhat reminiscent of that of U2’s Bono, but this has to be qualified by saying this is only the start of what he has to offer. Imagine Frank Skinner creaky comedic delivery and transfer this to a singing voice. Also think the extremes of bronchial hacks and wheezes delivered sometimes from deep throat, sometimes as a high nasal whine and apply these methodologies to a wide spectrum of moans, grunts and other gutteral utterances and you have a rough picture of what we’re dealing with here. These vocals sounds are amazing and set alongside a number of interestingly creative acoustic guitar effects they provide a highly emotive and descriptive kind of music which one doesn’t need to actually hear the songwords to get all the information one needs to know to decipher the music. It’s dramatic and picturesque and highly original to boot. The sounds at one time reminded me of David Crosby’s seminal album ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’ with its extreme variation of volume and vocal range and its rambling noodly styling. When Jules Franks joined Alan to jam on djembe I was reminded of Plant & Page’s excursions into middle eastern music on their un-Ledded ‘No Quarter’ album. Despite having to invoke these comparisons to draw a picture of the area we were in, it needs to be said that Alan O’Rourke is a true original with a sound and style of his own. He deserves to be sought out by anyone looking for something new to brighten up or revive their musical landscape.
Finally we came to the moment I have been awaiting for over a year - The Jules Franks Band. For those who do not already know, I think it worthwhile to describe the musical ballpark we find ourselves in here. Think Psychedelia – take a pinch of Traffic, a soupcon of Curved Air, perhaps smatterings of The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever and East of Eden. But most of all think Quintessence, with their heady amalgam of prog-rock and jazzy mysticism.
I was really hoping The Jules Franks Band would be able to deliver on the promise of the very fine album that preceded them. I’m ecstatic to be able to report that they delivered in fine style. My only beef would be that the venue and the sound system were probably not commensurate with what they had to offer. The seven members of the band were crammed onto a very small stage and one received the impression that the individual players did not have enough space into which they could relax enough to really let themselves go. Also the amplification and acoustics were not good enough to provide the really full sound which they were obviously striving to produce.
Having said this, I want to assure you that the actual performance from the whole band – guitar, bass, keys, harmonium, drums, electric fiddle and Jules’s range of percussion instruments - was indeed excellent if not even better than expected. They reproduced the songs from the album with great faithfulness to the originals adding new flourishes and imbuing individual instrumental embellishments as were necessary and the vocal stylings were truly brilliant.
The highlight of the evening was their rendition of ‘Pretender to the Throne’ which I think will become their signature tune. They then rounded off the evening with a dazzling version of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ which seemed totally appropriate.
The Tomorrow I’m looking forward to contains the Jules Franks Band, possibly with an easily remembered and more lyrical moniker, playing sunny venues filled with masses of swaying adoring hippy musos being transported to a musical paradise on a magic carpet of perfect acoustics at a satisfyingly comfortable high volume that adequately supports the sublime musical experience I know Jules and his cohort are capable of providing.
Comments