S. Carey // Norwich Arts Centre, 21.05.14
The music is amazing; at times whisper-soft and delicate, building to tribal double drums...
S. Carey is the drummer from Bon Iver and also the backing singer. During a hiatus from touring and recording as part of that band, he has been recording his own music and is currently on tour. The Arts Centre was treated to one of their dates as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
S Carey and the rest of the band are understated, modest and very serious about their music. They tell us they had a jolly trip to the beach yesterday and have enjoyed Norwich very much. The mixed-aged audience, for what must be a sold out event, are packed in but very still and silent in a good way, rapt and peacefully listening. They play for an hour, including a one-song encore, including many of the songs from S. Carey's two albums, 'All We Grow' from 2010 and his new album, 'Range of Light' as well as a sweet cover of Bjork's 'Unravel'. His voice is velvet smooth and lovely to listen to, although not quite the perfect angelic sound of Bon Iver's lead singer Justin Vernon, and the music is amazing; at times whisper-soft and delicate, building to tribal double drums and surprising us with loud cymbal solos and bonkers psychedelic keyboard moments, which keep us on our toes. There are definite echoes of Bon Iver; the influences of the 80s, jazz improvisations and cinematic soundtracks are evident. Tonight, however, it doesn't feel that they are yet entirely confident as a band; they all seemed to still be in the process of finding their feet in terms of playing together as a whole. The band consists of four members; drummer, keyboardist, bassist and S Carey himself on keyboards and occasional drums, including two drum kits, a drum pad and three sets of keyboards amongst them. They all seem to be multi instrumentalists, extremely talented and very watchable... there just seems to be a touch of magic and presence missing which I think could definitely improve given more time playing together.
Overall, a really nice, relaxed gig by some amazing competent musicians who take their music very seriously but perhaps could benefit from relaxing a little more.
