Live review

Patrick Watson / Jaymay

Borderline, London

added: 9 Aug 2007 // gig date: 7 Aug 2007
reviewer: Sebastian Perry

Jaymay is a New York folk-pop artist whose songs somehow contrive to be simultaneously brooding and spritely. She's probably doomed to be labelled one of those 'sassy' singer-songwriters in the K.T. Tunstall vein, but there's a morose and abrasive quality to her material that's more reminiscent of Martha Wainwright. It's an excellent solo set, marred only by a peculiar habit of finishing certain songs with an imitation of a trumpet solo. It lends her all the gravitas of a kazoo at a funeral.

Imagine Sammy Davis Jnr reincarnated as a French Canadian and you're halfway to defining the extraordinary stage presence of Patrick Watson. His voice is a luscious croon but it sounds as though it's coming through a mouthful of marbles. It's not a speech impediment - he's perfectly intelligible when he talks. But as soon as a song begins he reverts to indecipherable mumblings, alternated with a grating Chris Martin-style falsetto. When not bashing away at the piano, he also likes to sing through an effects pedal to create an ear-perforating cascade of shrieks and wails.

What's missing, though, is material developed enough for an audience to latch onto. His band seem to have embarked long ago on a progressive jazz odyssey, and their experimental meanderings married to Watson's scat vocals make for wearisome listening. It's like the fairground clatter with which the Guillemots open their live sets, except drawn out over a whole hour.

The best moments are the quietest. 'Weight of the World' begins as a ragged, harmonium-backed ballad worthy of Tom Waits, and set-closer 'Man Under The Sea', which Watson comes out to perform unplugged among the audience, is a spine-tingling triumph. The rest of the time I felt I was drowning in self-indulgence.

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