Earth Cruises are music promoters who also support a range of charities with at least 10% of show profits going to their chosen beneficiaries (currently the Hackney Migrant Centre). This show, in the wooden embrace of Nunhead’s community run pub The Ivy House, features Bristol’s Run Logan Run and Yaatri from Leeds as part of their ‘Newly Minted’ series which not only champions new and emerging acts but also offers free entry. Both acts tonight have their roots in jazz but have beaten very different paths to get to the music they play.
First on the bill was Yaatri, the Leeds-based quintet of Liam Narain DeTar – Guitar, Rosie Miles – vocals, Felix Bertulis-Webb – piano, organelle, Dom Kilsby – drums, Joe Wilkes – Bass. Their music is a swell of rising and falling tides and rather than making straight fusion music, they blend polyrhythms with influences from Eastern and African music. They have refracted jazz music into a spectrum of different colours and moods which sail through jazz-rock, psychedelic, acoustic and electronic.
They can ride gentle ethereal currents on tracks like ‘Creation’ but also stomp out a hard riff on ‘Gold’ and throughout their set the instrumentation and vocals are perfectly layered. Their overall sound is effortless but watching them makes you appreciate the intricacy of their playing as these are accomplished musicians who serve the songs not the egos of each player. They are young hearts with old souls, and by the end of their set the applause suggested that anyone, like me, who had not heard them before had become a new fan.
Yaatri’s set: ‘Creation’ and ‘Gold’ from the Lucid album, ‘Carousel’ and ‘Borderline’, both unreleased.
Yaatri’s current album is Creation
I’ve been going to see Run Logan Run as a duo since 2017 but they are currently touring as a four piece to promote their current album Nature Will Take Care Of You and, apart from ‘Give Me Back My Slippers’ (taken from 2021’s For A Brief Moment We Could Smell The Flowers), all of the tracks tonight come from Nature…
From the ground shaking lower register of opening track ‘Growing Pains’ to the floatation tank feeling of ‘Project Pigeon Missile’, they can flex between the spirit world and the subterranean grind of tectonic plates. The sound is driven by the exceptional playing of band leader Andrew Neil Hayes who runs his saxophone through a range of effects pedals to align your chakras one-minute and shake your fillings the next. Also joining the band on stage is singer/songwriter, and fellow Bristolian, Annie Gardiner* whose voice can float alongside the lighter passages but also has the power to not get lost in the maelstrom the rest of the band can whip up. Despite wanting to get back on the road to avoid a second ULEZ charge on the way back to Bristol the audience would not let them go without an encore and they shook the wooden panels of the Ivy House with the epic tumble of ‘Searching For God In Strangers Faces’ which could enhance the menacing black and white opening titles of any film noir classic.
Run Logan Run: James Vine (drums), Beth O’Lenahan (bass), Jacob Houghton (guitar), Annie Gardiner (vocals), Andrew Neil Hayes (saxophone).
Run Logan Run’s set: ‘Growing Pains’, ‘Project Pigeon Missile’, ‘The Softest Nose In The World’, ‘Great Fools’, ‘Give Me Back My Slippers’, ‘Silver Afternoon’ and ‘Searching For God In Strangers Faces’
Run Logan Run’s current album is Nature Will Take Care Of You.
Run Logan Run socials: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Bandcamp | Website
Yaatri socials: Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | YouTube
Follow Earth Cruises here
* I highly recommend Annie Gardiner’s album Bloodletting
Review by Paul F Cook
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