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| Photo Rob Bridge Redwood Photography |
This current tour is being promoted under the banner of the
new album title THE LONGING KIND and sensibly Maz is using the dates to
showcase many songs from a release which sees her for the first time solely
rely on original material. To help Maz deliver the songs to a live audience,
she has enlisted the services of two other musicians to form a trio. One of
these is no stranger to me or the venue as Laura Carrivick has played here
several times with her sister Charlotte including most recently as a part of
the new quartet Cardboard Fox. Tonight Laura provided a small element of twang
to the sound, experimenting in lap steel and banjo alongside her trademark
fiddle, a staple of any Carrivick Sisters show. In-demand session double
bassist John Parker completed the trio and just looking at the artists he has
played with suggested the rhythm part of the show was in good hands.
Prior to Maz commencing the first of her two sets, London
based fellow singer-songwriter Emma Ballantine opened the evening by playing
some of her songs for half an hour. Emma had sufficiently impressed when
supporting Blue Rose Code at the venue towards the end of last year to be
invited back and her stylish take on simple song delivery created a setting for
folks to sit up and take notice. Introducing songs from her recent EP titled
TOURIST, which includes a cover of Suzanne Vega’s ‘The Queen and the Soldier’, Emma showed enough poise to rise above
the deluge of solo acoustic acts and demonstrate that a promising future is in
her grasp with more shows and recorded material under her belt.
Perhaps getting to the status of Maz is a short term goal
for Emma and what we witnessed as the main part of the show got underway was an
assured folk singer balancing the key components of fine vocal acumen and
engaging audience chat. The latter exuded a huge degree of warmth and familiarity
as we got to know a little more about her and the influences for the new
record. Opening with the title ‘The
Longing Kind’, Maz almost devoted the whole of the first set to the new
record by playing ‘A Winter's Blues’, ‘Crook
of His Arm’. ‘Mother Make My Bed’ and ‘Jane
Grey’. If you nip over to her Bandcamp site, three of the new songs can be
streamed ahead of the release and while you’re there, pre-ordering wouldn’t be
a bad idea. The exception of new songs before the interval was Maz’s take on
the Child ballad ‘The Grey Selkie’
which appeared on one of her previous records. There were enough folk fans in
the audience to respond in the affirmative when asked if anyone knew the story
of the song.
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| hoto Rob Bridge Redwood Photography |
On that thoughtful and perceptive note, it is worth
celebrating the fact that singers like Maz O’Connor are famous enough to uproot
from their hometown and are prepared to tour their songs and music around the
land. At just twenty five years of age, Maz has many years ahead of her in the
often choppy waters of the music industry, but is supremely armed with a talent
arsenal to ensure success on a defined scale is secured. Venues like the
Kitchen Garden Café vibrantly play their part in this scene and on the evidence
of tonight’s show, we may be in the midst of a golden age where indie is king
and creativity is flowing unhindered.