Heart of Noise

My violin came out of its case this week, for the first time in months.

I dug out some Irish fiddle music, turned it up loud and played along with my eyes closed, teaching myself a few new tunes and pretending I was right there with the musicians, playing along.

Going to a gig doesn’t often inspire that kind of music making for me. Especially when the gig isn’t a session in the corner of some age-old pub, but is in one of London’s trendiest venues, The Social, and the four piece band is signed to indie label, Oh Inverted World?

But Tristram are that rare thing – a band that speaks to a contemporary world, while being firmly rooted in older folk traditions: where annunciation and vocal inflections turn the voice into an instrument in itself; where string instruments (in this case the cello) and ukulele are integral to the music rather than just pretty strings filler; and where space in the texture and the pace is just as important as the melodies that we hear.

This might sound like a very ‘worthy’ musical cause, but Tristram Bawtree, lead singer and song-writer, is anything but – he sings his songs with a knowing smile and we hear stories about stolen bicycles and house parties. Isolde, is a rocking sea-shanty kind of song, whose title refers to Wagner’s opera, but this is where the grandiose claims end. We are constantly aware that while he is harking back to the pure elements of folk tradition, like Beirut’s reference of Balkan folk music, Tristram is London born and bred. He might wear his heart on his sleeve, and use traditional folk as his musical language, but what he actually says is reassuringly relevant and at times, playfully tongue-in-cheek.

The folk tag comes up a lot these days, and I have a lot of time for many of the bands who claim the label. But often, all it means is that they use acoustic instruments and the term is just derivative.

At this intimate gig, Tristram communicated something much more powerful and meaningful to the small crowd. I’ve no doubt that in the coming months, he will be winning over much bigger audiences, in his own unassuming way.