Alexis Taylor – The Tuning Fork October 18, 2017

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Alexis Taylor’s Piano album came out in June last year — a beautiful, intimate record, pared back to the bare bones with just his voice and the piano. I’d only caught up on this in recent weeks when I heard he was coming to do a show, and as a huge Hot Chip fan, had been listening to all three versions — Piano, Listen With(out) Piano, and Listen With Piano.

He’s designed it so you can sync up Piano with its companion album, Listen With(out) Piano, on different devices or record players, or just listen to them on their own. Each album provides quite a different listening experience.

I was quite taken with Piano already, and was really looking forward to the show.

Tonight was running right on time, and after a sweet set from Gareth Thomas, who ended with a lovely acoustic version of Sophie, Alexis Taylor walked onto the stage.

He started off with In The Light of the Room, setting the tone right away with his beautiful heartfelt delivery. The warm glow of the Wurlitzer organ provides the perfect accompaniment for his soulful vocals. He continued with I’m Your Puppet. Then for the third song, starts up his CDJ player, playing a loud scratchy buzz that sounds like an old record player. This changes it up a bit, adding a wall of sound to the mix behind his smooth organ solos and vocals.

He has a distinctive voice, and at this point I could sit here and listen to it all night. It’s very calming, with an emotive vulnerability that makes his songs sound even more heartfelt and personal. The room is filled with a reverent silence, as the audience soaks up every minute of this rare intimate gig.

Before the next song, Alexis explains the Piano and companion album then demonstrates  by playing over the track by Mammalian for So Much Further To Go, an old Hot Chip song. For this track, Mammalian starts with an off-kilter pizzicato effect, later adding more smooth ambient strings, giving the song a floaty feeling, with a looser sense of timing.

It’s not an obvious match straight away, but it’s starting to grow on me. Alexis gave each artist a pretty open brief to write a response to his songs, so there’s a wide range of different interpretations on the record, which keeps it interesting.

Next he introduced, White Wine And Fried Chicken, another Hot Chip track, adding, “I’m a vegetarian, and I can’t really justify writing this song.”

He follows this with Interleave, a song he wrote with a group called Win Win. This has a heavier bassy synth sound behind it, turning things back up a notch.

Switching back to Hot Chip songs, he continued with Now There Is Nothing. Surrounded by solid bass drum beats and those smooth keyboard lines, you really feel he’s pouring his heart and soul out in this show, and it’s quite captivating.

At this point he switches to guitar for, Made In The Dark. I hadn’t heard a solo electric guitar version of this song before, and it worked really well, a ballad sung into the darkness of the room. The second song on guitar was a cover of Prince’s If I Was Your Girlfriend. Not the first time he’s covered Prince, as he’s obviously a fan. The soulful melancholic tones make it a song all his own. Quite a different take, but it works.

There’s another sweet moment where he sits down at the Wurlitzer again to play Without A Crutch. The line “I’m just here to sing you songs” sounds like it’s gently poking fun at the situation, but really he’s got us all transfixed, hanging on every note.

Before the next song, (a sort of country style love song), he tells a great story about being locked out of his house after a gig, being stuck outside with lots of heavy equipment, while the taxi driver waited with him. He ended up smashing a big window to get in, then getting in trouble with his wife for not smashing a smaller panel so he could just reach in for the door handle.

“So… this next song’s called I Never Lock That Door” he adds, which gets a laugh.

Next he invites his mate Will Saunders onto the stage. I’ve seen Will play around town a few times, but didn’t know they were mates! Apparently they used to work together when Will lived in London. He climbs onto the stage and joins in on rhythm guitar, while Alexis jams on his guitar, sitting down at the keyboard to play a few notes, then standing up to play a bit of slide guitar with a beer bottle. There’s a steady stomping beat throughout and a few scratchy samples in the backing track. After the jam session’s done, Will climbs down and jogs back to his seat.

“I’ve only got a bit of time left, does anyone have any requests?” Alexis asks.

There’s a collective gasp, we weren’t expecting this.

“Boy From School” says someone. Good call. I think the second person yelled out Plastic Man. Then someone says “the one that rhymes Abba with Aiya Napa”, which cracked me up.

“Night and Day,” Alexis replies, “That might sound crap on my own though..”

He stuck to the first two in the end, which was wise.

Boy From School was a great choice. It sounded more poignant and beautiful than you can imagine. You hear the song in a whole new way when everything’s laid bare, slowed down and exposed.

The last song for the night was Plastic Man, which segued into I Look To You by Whitney Houston. A beautifully tender ending, as he sings the line;

“And when melodies are gone, in you I hear a song.”

Honestly, I could’ve listened all night. A special and intimate show I won’t soon forget.

Dedee W

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Reuben Raj (www.somebizarremonkey.com):

 

 

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