2004

Turin Brakes

Fowlers Live

Murray Bramwell

Just three days into January and we may already be seeing one of the year’s best. UK band, Turin Brakes, on the rebound from the Falls Festival, are playing to a tiny but attentive crowd at Fowlers Live and showing just why they have gathered such a big reputation since their exceptional debut album, The Optimist, first appeared in 2001.

Touted as nu acoustica, along with the likes of I am Kloot, Kings of Convenience and Starsailor, co-writers Ollie Knights and Gale Paridjanian, have now taken the obscurely named Turin Brakes ahead of the pack, especially since the release of their new CD,  Ether Song, with its appealingly spacious sound and intricately layered arrangements.

There are many things to like about these serious young insects. Their gorgeous, keening vocals for a start – and the confidence and drowsy numbness of their elegantly constructed songs. There are notable influences. Some, they admit, come from poring over folk rock albums in their parents’ houses – all that Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Crosby, Stills and Nash and so on. But there is also something of the operatic, surrealistic style of Cream’s Jack Bruce (and his lyricist Pete Brown), as well as links with such contemporaries as Badly Drawn Boy and the late and much lamented Elliott Smith.

In the limited confines of the Fowlers stage the duo, plus bass, keyboards and drums, trade a few wan remarks about the near forty degree heat and, with no further ado, take airy flight into one of their ether songs. Long Distance – I let somebody get under my skin. The vocals, fired up by Knights and then welded into bright metal with the intensity of Paridjanian’s harmonies, sound unearthly even in the limited acoustics of the venue. The band provides a staunch beat while the vocals entwine in hypnotic unison. We are getting all the new material – Five Mile, with loud splashy guitar and hurdy gurdy keyboard, and the slowly unfurling Stone Thrown – with filigree bottleneck from Gale and dreamy crooning from Ollie.

The new songs sound good – Self Help, Panic Attack – but the devotees crowding up to the stage really come alive for a cluster of Great Ones from The Optimist. Future Boy sets a prescient note but it is the radio hits –  Emergency 72, Underdog, and the introspective Feeling Oblivion – that hit all the buttons at once. The singers inhabit this older material with accomplished ease and the touring band is also having fun. I think if Turin Brakes had only ever written Underdog they would have deserved a place in heaven.

But there are others in their firmament – the UK summer anthem, Painkiller closes proceedings before the band, encouraged by the conspicuous enthusiasm of the fans, come back for encores.  Blue Hour and a very boppy version of Little Brother bring to a close what has been a magic little set – melodic, intense and yet memorably understated. If there is any justice in the world this will be a very good year for Turin Brakes. With talent like this, there should be no stopping them.

“Rewards for the Optimists” The Adelaide Review, No.245, February, 2004. p.24.