Phosphorescent and Caitlin Rose at Scala

Phosphorescent
Timber Timbre
Caitlin Rose
Scala, September 8 2010
There’s something special about Caitlin Rose. Here she is, a petite 23-year-old from Nashville with Linda Ronstadt circa 1969 hair, in the cool surroundings of the Scala, wearing cowboy boots, demin shirt and a Western-style belt (belonging to her dad) and playing country music to a bunch of trendy young Londoners and they are absolutely captivated. It’s a joy to see and a testament to her power as a songwriter and storyteller.
Country, for whatever strange reason, has never been hugely popular on these shores unless offered up with a rock and roll swagger but the honesty and sweetness of Caitlin’s pure country sound is hard not to love and is a clear descendent to the likes of Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, as evident on her debut album, Own Side Now, without doubt one of the year’s best. On stage she is endearingly unsure of herself when speaking to the audience, not that it matters when she begins to sing: closing her eyes, her voice rings pure and clear, particularly when she steps back from the microphone to let it soar and you hear just how strong it is. She tells us she’s not been well and her throat is “hairy” but you’d never tell, she sounds lovely.

Backed with just a three-piece band (consisting of a bassist, an impressive country-styling guitarist and a pedal steel player), the sound is unpretentious and real, much like the lady herself, and songs like Shanghai Cigarettes and Sinful Wishing Well already sound like classic country laments. If this is the future of country music then Nashville has nothing to worry about at all.
When Canadian band Timber Timbre first arrive on stage in complete darkness, at first their eerie, droning style sounds like a complete contrast to Rose but when singer and main member Taylor Kirk begins to sing you can hear the connection: there’s country in this music too, albeit a noirish, desert-town, spooky country, filled with atmospheric pedal steel and haunting violin flourishes. It’s a sound that seems as much influenced by old 50s rock and blues as the dark, gothic style of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, in fact Kirk’s voice is particularly reminiscent of Cave's deep booming style. Playing in the dark actually suits the music and, funnily enough, downplaying the visuals somehow helps it become even more cinematic. I’m not sure how this would hold up for a longer set but for the 30 minutes they are on stage it’s certainly mesmerising stuff.
I last saw Matthew Houck, who is essentially Phosphorescent, playing a solo acoustic set in support to Black Mountain at the same venue and while he was excellent, it didn’t prepare me for just how great his band is, because live they are positively smoking. The first three songs recall Crazy Horse at their ragged best, starting with a completely reworked version of Aw Come Aw Wry’s Dead Heart, adding a driving beat to the raw emotions of the song, and the first two songs from the new Phosphorescent long player, Here’s To Taking It Easy, the superbly titled It’s Hard To Be Humble (When You’re From Alabama) and Nothing Was Stolen, clearly striving for The Band’s style of roots-based boogie and coming pretty damn close.

The only drawback to this band-in-full-swing approach (a particularly great showcase for their incredible piano player Scott Stapleton) is that Houck’s fragile vocals are sometimes lost in the mix. Despite this, he’s an impressive frontman, oozing a cool laid-back confidence, with his easy style and crown of blonde curls. This particularly comes through when he puts his guitar down to sing a trio of Willie Nelson covers (from their album To Willie), which sees him swinging his microphone around Roger Daltrey-style and clearly relishing singing the songs of his idol.
But as good as his band are and the reworked, full band versions of many of the songs sound, there is something particularly great when Houck re-emerges for the encore and treats the audience to a few acoustic numbers including a hugely effective cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye and a sublime A Picture Of Our Torn Up Praise (maybe his greatest song). I was looking forward to hearing this song played with the full band but it was undeniably powerful played alone, with Houck’s voice sounding vulnerable, touching yet surprisingly strong. The band return for a full-on rocking assault of the new album’s suitably epic closing number Los Angeles but it's unnecessary, the show had already proved to be pretty perfect without it.