St. Vincent Manchester Cathedral 21st February 2014 10/10

The greatest art is multi-disciplinary, stimulating your senses to the exclusion of all else. At its best, opera can provide such total absorption, and St. Vincent drew upon robotic ballet to achieve the same effect. Every detail of the  choreography had been painstakingly thought out for the optimum dramatic effect. A high, stepped platform in the centre of the stage was ascended by St. Vincent, only for her to recline on the top and then roll back, upside down. Even without such acrobatics, it would be difficult to imagine a more atmospheric venue than Manchester's gothic cathedral. The strobe lighting added to the over worldly sense of mystery. The huge acoustic may have blurred the vocals slightly, but compensated by enveloping you in sound.

A saxon carving of an angel from 700AD found preserved in a wall is testament to the fact that we were present in a space which has been a place of worship for centuries. St. Vincent's music may have very contemporary rhythms, owing something to Prince who was playing across town, but it feels primeval and mystical. With such ceremony, St. Vincent is more Catholic than Protestant, and her striking dress was as bold and theatrical as any high church ecclesiastical vestment. As it happens, Annie Clark's stage name comes from the Catholic medical centre where Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died, and this was a religious experience. Like Janelle Monae's, her act is highly stylised and imaginative. We were a universe away from the rainy, mundane world outside.

The set, heavy on material from her exceptionally fine new album, was played flawlessly, and didn't diverge greatly from the studio sound. Yet, to my surprise, the experience was far from cold and clinical. On record, St. Vincent isn't perhaps the most immediately appealing contemporary musician. The sounds she makes are viscerally startling and vital, but almost wilfully eccentric. That they are so much more compelling live is in part because she demands total concentration. Once you enter her strangely hypnotic sound world, it's impossible not to be drawn in, and an extraordinary two hours passed all too quickly. Despite the meticulous planning and the adoption of an alter ego, at its heart was a warmth and joy. Flashes of Annie Clark emerged from the character when her eyes smiled radiantly at me. She also struck up an unusual rapport by calling out random facts which she predicted must applied to someone in the audience, by bizarre coincidence, like a medieval prophet.

It seems almost superfluous to try to dissect the music, other than to say that despite the strong vocals, her guitar playing was even more original and memorable. Perhaps I'm influenced here by the surprising turn of events when St. Vincent leaned down from the stage, mid song, and handed me her plectrum, signalling to me to strum her guitar. For me, this was the culmination of a dream-like experience, an evening when I was spirited into an incredibly creative, stimulating parallel universe. Prince Johnny was a mid set highlight, but the climax came with the encores and Krokodil which closed the main set. This song, from a Record Store Day 7" was performed when I saw her amongst the palm trees of  Coachella in 2012. Since then, she's developed her act further into an extraordinary artistic achievement. You should do all in your power to experience it personally; even so early in the year, it's hard to imagine that 2014 will bring another experience to rival this one.

Set List

• Rattlesnake
• Digital Witness
• Cruel
• Birth in Reverse
• Regret
• Laughing With A Mouth of Blood
• Jesus
• Pieta
• Every Tear Disappears
• Surgeon
• Cheerleader
• Prince Johnny
• Year of the Tiger
• Marrow
• Huey Newton
• Bring Me Your Loves
• Northern Lights
• Krokodil

Encores

• The Bed
• Your Lips Are Red

The Deep Dark Woods, Gullivers Manchester 3rd February 2014 9/10

I'm evangelistic about new music discovery, but it's equally satisfying to see a group I already love evolve. Two years ago, The Deep Dark Woods was touring their previous album The Place I Left Behind, and it was with the title song that they opened last night's show. This time, in a slightly larger venue, there was room for Geoff Hilhorst's vintage Hammond organ to fit on stage, in spite of the addition of young guitar player Clayton Linthicum. Jubilee was released last September, and sounds as if Clayton has allowed a deeper exploration of a blues sound. They've always embraced warm melody and gorgeous vocal harmonies, but now rhythm seems to be to the fore. Drums and keyboard were emphasised by the bass heavy mix, but the band also played more tightly than I remember from last time. Even a melancholic country influenced song like 18th December featured a toe tapping beat.

The Deep Dark Woods is very much a collaborative project, founded on an interplay between musicians who've spent many hours playing together. They avoided an LA studio and retreated to a remote cabin in Bragg Creek Alberta to record Jubilee. I wrote in my review of their previous Manchester show that they illustrate the relation of music to place. I travel across the Canadian prairies by train each year, and it's a distinctive landscape, unimaginably vast and sparsely populated. The expansiveness of the songs reflects this terrain, as does their melancholy air and relaxed tempi. Yet, I feel as if they've moved into a more abstract plane with Jubilee, away from folk influences and towards a psychedelic jam band sound reminiscent of The Grateful Dead. This is exemplified in The Same Thing, the ten minute song which closes Jubilee, which had an even greater intensity live. The album was produced by Jonathan Wilson, who is at the heart of the Laurel Canyon revival, and along with the Clayton has helped to steer the band towards new, yet old, territory.

This set emphasised instrumental virtuosity, like Jonathan Wilson's a few weeks ago, especially with electric guitar. Yet Ryan Boldt haunting voice is still central as he sings tales of bad luck, loss and redemption, often accompanied by vocals from bass player Chris Mason. On stage Ryan is endearingly shy, mumbling a few words about their merch. before giving up and admitting he's no salesman. He even resorted to announcing the key signature of the next song in lieu of conversation. There was clearly no need for elaborate lighting, props or gimmicky clothing, and the band didn't attempt to leap off the stage into the crowd. Yet their expressions were telling: despite the often sombre tone of the music, joy was evident on their faces. In one memorable moment, Ryan caught site of a lady dancing enthusiastically behind me and broke out into a beaming smile. These musicians are touring not for fame or money, but because they enjoy  expressing their culture and experiences in a form far more eloquent than the spoken word.

Ryan self deprecatingly told a journalist enquiring about the new record that 'it would be nice to cut down on the shows where nobody attends'. Happily, many of the stops on their UK tour sold out, though not this one when Bill Callahan was performing across town. But they share a lack of commercial ambition with the main support band, Trembling Bells who ambitiously 'seek to reanimate the psychic landscapes of Great Britain and relocate them to some vague, mythic land where basic human crises are encountered and conquered'. Trembling Bells sounded heavier and darker than I expected, even if traditional British folk melody emerged after the shock of the first number. They're eclectic, but made a logical pairing with The Deep Dark Woods due to a shared interest in late 60's psychedelia. Indeed, founder and drummer Alex Neilson was previously a member of a free folk improvisational project with soprano Lavinia Blackwell. Her voice was ethereal sounding, and the numbers where she played keyboard were the most imaginative. The set was at times challenging, but was a welcome anecdote to the crowd pleasing nu folk of the likes of Mumford and Sons; I'm eager to see this group again. Squeezing a third band into the show and onto the stage made for a late night, but Biederbeck's weaknesses were forgivable, stemming as they were from an excess of ambition. With two violin players and one broken string, the Manchester seven piece brought much life and enthusiasm to Gullivers, perhaps inspired by Arcade Fire.

Trembling Bells

Biederbeck

But of course it was The Deep Dark Woods that I really got lost in: their hour long set felt longer to me, which is a compliment, as the passage of time seemed to slow. Ryan has talked of the importance of an appreciation of musical heritage: they reference the past, and draw inspiration from the unique atmosphere of The Prairies. They may not be particularly outwardly extrovert performers, instead using their music to create a space for the imagination to roam freely. Perhaps for those too young to have experienced The Dead, they even made time travel seem possible last night in Manchester. One album review said that Jubilee is 'more about reflection than dancing', but live, it's so full of energy that the album's title does seem apt. This mesmerising group deserves recognition from far beyond the world of Americana.