STILL - THE LEXINGTON - 02/06/2009

After a sweltering day selling bikes and successfully trying to purchase goldfish in Camden town, I was all but ready to embrace the cool musical offerings the Lexington had to offer as part of its new music night – STILL.

Despite being billed as headliners, Spindle & Wit - up-and-coming London post-folk outfit – were unaccountably on first. They were fresh and vibrant with their tightness only occasionally compromised by some slightly dodgy vocal harmonies, thought that was probably more the fault of the soundman than anything else. With a banjo and violin making up 2 of the instruments in this rather young and attractive 5-piece, the band gave an original and passionate performance. Their sound is very much part of the current London music scene – some say the credit crunch, global warming or even the Irish are to blame for resurgence of folk music amongst the middle class yoof of Britain.Jeremy Warmsley,Kill It Kid and the more mainstream likes of Arcade Fire or even Nick Cave are all solid examples of this return to the grassroots approach, complete with rolled-up shirt sleeves and tight –belted trousers. It was early, but the little red room in Angel’s trendiest whiskey bar was busy and not without its fair share of leg wobbles and head nods. Spindle and Wit’s set was teasingly short but left everyone in anticipation of what the rest of the night might bring.

The next act on, however, were so mellow that it undid all the excitement whipped up so well by the previous act.Snowbird, a young American vocalist and her slightly older and balder pianist/drum machine operator were no doubt talented (he performed the entire set with eyes closed and expressions of ecstasy flashing across his face – now that’s multi-tasking!), but seemed much more suited as an opening act rather than sitting awkwardly in the middle of the bill. Stephanie’s voice was hypnotic with resonances of Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos nestled within her sweet warbling sound. Simon (of former Cocteau twins fame) and his entrancing keyboard melodies complimented her sound nicely. She was so good that I was willing to overlook the often nauseating lyrics, but dear god THAT DRUM MACHINE. Viewing the drum machine as one of my natural enemies as I do anyway, the soul-less hissing ringing from Simon’s Macbook sat smugly atop his Yamaha was enough to send the most sympathetic muso loopy (excuse the pun). Fortunately the duo performed half the set unaccompanied, and was all the better for it.

Last to grace the stage were Danny and the Champions of the World. I had assumed that the name was some sort of ironic illusion to the Roald Dahl classic, but as the performance wore on, it seemed to reflect their attitude quite accurately. Lashings of Lute and Flute combined with a charismatic Johnny Cash-type as front-man made the band interesting - and MY LORD could the drummer thwack out a tasty beat. For the first song or two this seemed to work for them quite well. However, the mass amalgamation of egos resulted in all of Danny’s songs finishing in a drawn out, overplayed, sped up then slowed down orgy of sound. The group often made a circle as they furiously tried to outplay each other - in much the same way a public school boy takes part in the ‘soggy biscuit game’ and just as unpleasant to watch. The band played faster and more frantically as the room grew frostier. The air conditioning in there seemed to be working rather too well, it seemed, and unfortunately turned what started off as a really exciting night into something that left me fairly cold.