Triptych Tour at The New Evaristo Club

Triptych Tour at The New Evaristo Club

24 November, 2008
by: Evolmike

The Triptych Tour is the moniker applied to this trilogy of uncannily intertwined acts, Peggy Sue and the Pirates, Alessi's Ark and Derek Meins. They share a surreal psychedelia that takes their minimal folky ensembles and twists them into a bewildering, mesmerizing presence that is as arcane as it is modern, like a smiling goblin sitting on top of your head and feeding you sweets while it vigorously massages your eyebrows.

Peggy Sue and the Pirates display a curiously R&B flavoured marriage of what they call anti-folk and anti-soul, with sliding liquid harmonies and pole-vaulting vibratos complimenting an otherwise standard quaint folk setup. It's funny how they keep such stoic expressions while singing songs as comically irreverent as Superman ("All I really want is to have the right to wear my pants underneath my tights") and Horror Movie Marathon, but somehow it makes them seem all the more dark and strangely poignant. Apparently they used to tour with Kate Nash. I don't know who copied who, but put it this way: They sound how Kate Nash would sound if she actually had a soul.

Next up  is Alessi Laurent-Mark, (architect of Alessi's Ark), who has a similar, yet more detached approach. Her laconic lyrics have an all-encompassing ambiguity to them, painting pictures of abstract snapshots. Her singing voice reflects this obscurity in its coy but colourful innocence, as though scribbled lovingly on a valentine's card by a delirious infant. The result is a truly haunting, beckoning effect, especially since many of her songs are over after a couple of minutes and you're left thinking "Wait... what? What about the horse?"

But if subtlety's not your bag, don't worry. We also have Derek Meins, who is a testament to the versatility of folk music, the way it can be as obtuse or as literal as it likes. Derek doesn't beat about the bush. He has a directness both to his lyrics and his voice that penetrates the haze of music, chatter and light inebriation and grabs you by the hippocampus. When he writes a song about sex, he writes it ABOUT sex. When he writes about gin it's probably because he's thinking of gin. If at any point he's calling a spade a club, he's doing a very good job of insisting it's a club.

Having that quintessentially Celtic way of sounding simultaneously happy and melancholy, it's perfect music to drink to and at any stage of the night, whether you're clattering your way around the dance floor or drooling on an armrest. It almost makes me want to join him, to wander out into the middle of a purple, fog-draped highland meadow and start yodeling whimsical chestnuts of wit over the horizon.

All in all, a joyful and inspiring night. I can't help but find myself moved, and in several different directions.

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Evolmike