SpideWriter

Bodur Plays it By Ear at Cinema City This was a show with a strong basis, neatly executed: a concept album, with accompanying arthouse film, sync'd with the singer and her band playing in the near dark, to a very comfortably seated audience, in Norwich's classiest fleapit.  The musical heart of the show uses music known as Maqam. This is an Arabic music form that gives a structure of scales for building a melody, within which each musician is free to improvise.  It is how melody developed in Mesopotamia and Persia, absorbing influences from indigenous Arabic practise, Ancient Greece and Byzantium. It is the music of Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and throughout Central Asia. There has been the usual ooohing and aaarghing about a young musician bringing new music into the ageing Hipster world of North London, but maqam is older in origin than London itself and is why, when we travel eastward musically, we hear marked differences to western European originated melodies, which evolved ...

Wild Paths: Day 4 Part 3 Hipology Sounds After around an hour at the flicks, it was time to traverse cobbles and enjoy a lighter environment. Up the wooden stairs to a beer and a period of de-compression with Lloyd Jones (cables, knobs and buttons) and Simon Taylor (saxophone), in the company of a few good people amongst the solid oak beams of the pub, once notorious for wild pub-rock Friday nights, which is as far from Hipology Sounds laid back, Valencian inspired vibes as you could get. A quiet pint, enjoyed to electro tracks and improvised,  bluesy sax on max reverb. Beam me up, Hip-Hoppy I'm delighted to have discovered this duo and will look out for more of their live sets in the coming gloom of winter. They have a few recordings out on the ether at the moment, with more to follow.  Not much more to say about it really. Just a damned fine moment in time. Memorable.  Spencer Ide 18/10/2025

Wild Paths: Day Four Part 1 Vanity Fairy Goes to Church It's been a tremendous few days so far. Manageable, fun. Peopled by a wonderful variety of musical performances. I couldn't get to everything I wanted to on Thursday, so it was on Friday, hungry for more. I had to make choices without FOMO. C'est la vie, as Vanity Fairy would say, before undoubtedly turning it into a disco smash hit.  Vanity Fairy sets a high bar for Friday fun. In an act that just gets sillier, funnier and so very enjoyable, watching her explore every nook, cranny and architectural feature of St Lawrence's church to a disco beat, set the Five PM audience dancing, swaying and definitely smiling. Vanity, singing with a backing track, with day still lighting the windows high in the celerestory, brought all the glamour of a Friday night out in Mykonos, then some, to the first gig of the fourth day of Wild Paths, 2025. In her set of old and new tracks, Vanity Fair twirled and whirled around the magnifi...

Wild Paths: Day 3 - Evening SPACE Studios, Swan Lane The Wednesday of this year's Wild Paths was quite wonderful and there was more to come.  Having located SPACE Studios, which is housed up very steep stairs in a building on Swan Lane, right in the heart of the old city, I was impressed by the intimate dive club venue.  I had been briefly once before for an electronic music junket, when lighting was deemed an unhelpful distraction, but a necessary evil. To see it this evening with its trippy, bright walls and full lighting arrangements was a bit of a treat. The very serious DH Temple corporation at work DH Temple, resplendent in black leather waistcoat and strides, with a matching ten gallon hat, or maybe six gallon hat, (I wasn't too sure), to top it all off. What would that be in litres, forty, thirty-six? His band, of drums and guitarist / keyboard/ effects man and bassist with backing singer, were just about all set for an on-time lift-off.  They looked great, with t...

Sound Issues At The Octagon Chapel: Quinn Oulton trio John Ivory's building, opened as the New Meeting House in 1756.  The master carpenter, Freeman of the City, who had previously built the Methodist Hall up on Chapelfield Road, adjacent to The Champion pub, (for reference), clearly took great care to shape a building where a speaker would be able to address a large congregation with minimal vocal effort.  Preparations underway to bring down the old chapel Acoustically, it is an almost perfect building, as proven by the self-indulgent couple who 'whispered' through out their time at the disastrous Quinn Oulton gig on Thursday night. Thankfully, they left after being glared at, then shushed by a distracted audience member, who'd finally had enough of their ignorance. Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of the sound problems that beset Oulton's blyth attempts to play on despite obvious technical issues with the sound system.  A very successful show by Sofia Grant,...