Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening
Kathryn Tickell OBE, to give her full and proper title, is a composer, a recording artist, a Radio 3 presenter, and probably one the country’s best pipe players. She’s made a career out of exploring the musical heritage of her native Northumbria (from whence those pipes came) but, rather excitingly, last night was the very first time she played with The Darkening.
With a theatrical flourish, the band opened on just Cormac Byrne, strumming out a rhythm on a Bodhran before being swiftly supplemented by Joe Truswell on the drum kit, followed by Kieran Szifris on octave mandolin. Only then did Amy Thatcher appear with her accordion, along with Kate Young on fiddle, after which Kathryn Tickell finally joined them, adding to an ever swelling sound inspired by the wind-blown, unforgiving landscape of Northumbria.
The concert soon settled down to a pattern, whereby Tickell would chat for a bit – for quite a bit, to be honest – before launching into the tune previously explained. I don’t know what it is about folk music that compels performers to natter on so before each tune – what it’s about, when they wrote it, whose idea it was – but some of her expositions would have done Nana Mouskouri proud. She is hugely personable, and it’s not that what she had to say wasn’t without interest, but to my mind a little less background information, and a bit more music, would have done wonders for momentum.
A case in point was the opening song, the Collier’s Rant, a seventeenth century miners’ lament, cursing the devil for the death and disasters that dog the mine. We were promised intrigue and weirdness but, whether it was problems with the sound or the band still finding their feet, some dodgy vocal harmonies left the lyrics largely indiscernible. Worse, Amy Thatcher’s accordion seemed locked into battle with Tickell’s pipes, with the accordion winning. The music still sounded good, but though Tickell’s fingers could be seen moving frantically over the stem of the chanter, she might just have well been miming. All was explained later (the van of their engineer had blown up on the way and a substitute had stepped in) but coupled with Tickell losing her voice, it made for a shaking start.
Perhaps best, then, to fast forward past the largely unfathomable link between the roguish rake Jimmy Allen and The Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes – she had lost me by now – and focus instead of the brilliant musicianship that was beginning to emerge. Reminiscent of the stark minimalism of Spiro, but also Norfolk’s very own Headspace, complex layers of instrumentation were overlaid with much improved vocal harmonies that brought to mind the Unthanks. There was the tangible sense of a band coming together, with Tickell’s pipes-for-fiddle swap, allowing the band to move up a gear. Her striking presence centre stage, with flame red hair flying all about her as she played, was perfectly complemented by Amy Thatcher’s clog dancing, creating a real sense of theatre, before a feel good, clap along jig brought the opening half of the concert to a close.
After the break, having apologised that her throat infection made the planned a cappella number untenable, she demonstrated the colour of every cloud by an impromptu performance of a beautiful song on her beloved Northumbrian pipes. Such was her infectious enthusiasm that I even warmed to her lengthy digression beforehand, outlining, in detail, the various components of the instrument. Superbly atmospheric – you really could imagine those rugged Northumbrian hills, so different to our own landscape – and subtly accompanied by a percussive backdrop, this was the turning point of the evening, as we finally got to properly hear, and appreciate, what made the pipes so special, and her great love for them, explicable.
There was no stopping them now. The engineer finally twiddled the right knobs, so that the accordion and pipes duo that followed was a match of equal partners. There was even some fine spoon playing from Cormac Byrne, which I know sounds like an oxymoron, but, honestly, it really was good. Kieran Szifris found his mojo on the mandolin, on which he was clearly having a whale of time, and Kate Young finally found her voice. They then ticked the audience participation box with a song about hollow bones and stones with holes in (you get the idea) that brought out their inner Nyman, before finishing on a couple of cheeky encores.
In two, perfectly judged, forty five minute sets, we’d seen the band gel, grow and develop. If this was their first outing together, one can only imagine how good things are going to get later on in the tour – even so, there’s a sneaky pleasure in knowing we happy few saw the genesis of what is very obviously a great new band in the making.
