It’s a funny layout tonight down in the Basement. The stage’s positioned along the length of the oblong room instead of at the back wall and H. Hawkline is having a bit of trouble with this. He’s not sure which way to look as the crowd is predominately to his left and right instead of out in front, so by facing one section he’s inadvertently turning his back to the other. His solution, he jokes, is to swing around to face both directions at regular intervals.
H’s band is a tight unit. It’s just him on guitar, a bassist and a drum kit. Despite the absolute bare-bones set up, Hawlkine’s music sounds significantly fuller than it does on record, where the guitars are wire-thin and trebly. He doesn’t have a traditional singing voice, but its so distinct and at some points downright weird it can’t help but grip your attention as he yelps and hollers his way through. There are a few technical problems, including a broken string (“That’s number eight of the tour” he reveals) and some temperamental pedals but he plays it off coolly, it all adds to the charm of his idiosyncratic sound.
He’s playful with the crowd, keen to talk but has a self-awareness of the banality of crowd interaction, telling a meandering story leading up to ‘Spooky Dog’ about how he met a grey dog called Spooky. “Anyway this song isn’t about that dog” he slyly reveals with a smirk before launching into the song. What is soon to becoming a running gag throughout the evening, Hawkline explains how Gwenno persuaded him to have t-shirts made for the tour to make a bit of money but hasn’t managed to sell any, half-jokingly pleading with the audience to invest in one as there’s only two dates left to shift them.
The set ends with H.’s band leaving the stage and him performing a beautiful rendition of ‘It’s a Drag’ with just him and his electric guitar, his most recent release its one of his most melancholy and emotional honest songs. “Dying is easy / your eyes closed” he croons, presumably a more pessimistic take on the famous line from ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. All the oddness in Hawkline’s music is somewhat an attempt to mask the central truth, that he is an absurdly talented songwriter. Tonight the songs are forced to stand on their own two legs without any trickery and they’re all the better for it.
As H. Hawklinke leaves the stage solo Gwenno arrives on her own, but instantly has the room enthralled with her ghostly atmospherics and vocals. She brings out a live band for a stretch in the middle. They add to some of the songs, helping to carve out the dark groove of ‘Golau Arall’, but overall they feel unnecessary and drown out those luscious synths. Gwenno is perfectly capable of entrancing the audience on her own. Heavily pregnant in a sparkly sequin dress, she strikes dramatic poses as the accompanying refracted visuals of urban crowds and collapsing buildings create a weird kaleidoscope. Representing the troubling and fragmented nature of modern society that her songs explore.
Gwenno remains very personable throughout her show. Despite none of her songs being in English, she’s eager to communicate to the crowd what her songs are about, as well as chiding herself about the dour subject matters of her lyrics, which include light-weight topics such as media control, patriarchy and house planning. For the final song ‘Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki’ she evocatively describes how she imagines the song as a futuristic piece of music sound tracking people dancing at the end of the world. She also apologises profusely to Hawkline for the t-shirt suggestion, but is reluctant to encourage people to buy his, as they probably wouldn’t be able to afford hers as well. If you have a chance to see either of these two live, you would be depriving yourself if you didn’t take the opportunity. But for god’s sake buy a t-shirt if you do.
Louis Ormesher