[ATTENDED: June 27, 2019] Sarah Louise
I had heard of Sarah Louise through NPR, although I didn’t know all that much about her.
The NPR page says, “Henson’s career so far has largely hinged on her unmatched prowess as a fingerpicking guitarist. Solo, she’s made a handful of excellent albums of 12-string acoustic guitar music. But on Deeper Woods, she branches out into all kind of different sounds.”
Having read that she was a master of the 12 string, I was genuinely surprised that surprised that so much of the show was on electric guitar. (I assume her 12-string prowess is on the acoustic, but I may be wrong).
It was also strange because she didn’t do a lot on the guitar. The first couple of songs were sparse guitar playing coupled with complex and presumably improvised drumming from Thom Nguyen.
At times she fleshed out her sound with samples, including in this song which was as much about the birds as it was about her guitar playing.
She did bring in a 12 sting, but this one was electric (and colored sparkly pink). But rather than showing off her playing chops, she was doing a lot of minimalist work.
Again, it was drummer Thom Nguyen who was doing a lot of the sound making. He was fantastic, using all manner of percussive instruments along with his drums. I love the feedbacking guitar in this song.
I also enjoyed being this close to watch her play all of these high notes (and looping) and to see all the things that Nguyen used to make his sounds.,
Most of the songs were similarly minimalist and it was hard to tell if they were improvised or written. No one has posted a set list (for this or any show) and I don’t know any of her songs, so I don’t know anything about the set.
For a few songs, she added her voice. It is ethereal and remarkably high pitched. It wasn’t always easy to understand what she was singing, but it fit in perfectly with the music.
By the end of the set she had culminated with synths and some pounding from Nguyen to make a really unusual and fascinating performance.
I enjoyed it in an experimental way, although I don’t think I’d want to hear more than 35 or so minutes.
I am still a little disappointed that she didn’t play her acoustic guitar. I’ve been listening to her earlier record and it’s really quite wonderful.
The whole experience was unexpected, right down to the fact that the table she uses to keep her gear on was actually an old ironing board.
The highlight for me was when two members of Kikagaku Moyo joined her on stage. Guitarist Tomo Katusrada added some great psychedelic sounds while drummer Go Kurosawa played bass and gave a nice anchor to her ethereal music.
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