If she isn’t already Swiss Cottage’s finest, if not only folk-pop player; then it’s safe to say that Lial Arad definitely wins the award for being the hardest working. Her show at the Slaughtered Lamb tonight has the illustrious honour of being the singer’s 50th this year and as a result, it’s packed full of special guests including the wonderful Magic Lantern and her cousin Gaila who has flown in from New York just for the occasion.
Arriving late, I’m just getting settled when Lail takes the mic. Cutting a charismatic figure that wouldn’t be out of place in a piece of Musical Theatre, she quickly slips in to a demeanor that can only be described as a self-manifestation of her inner Children’s TV presenter.
The introspectiveness of Lial’s lyrics are revealing almost to the point of nudity. Playing cutesy songs about unrequited love and hopeless romanticism, delivered with vulnerable witticisms her songs never fail to hit you in the guts, especially as she croons ‘baby I need you because my noise is runny’ in Winter Song. Played over music that sounds like Scotland’s ‘Aberfeldy’, performed around a fire at an art student’s camping retreat, and you have something that is bouncy, catchy and pacifying all at the same time.
This sweet, self assured style is probably down to the guitar playing of Roi, a long time collaborator who comes across like a Sonny to her Cher. Gracefully managing to embellish on a number of rhythmic nuances and subtle strumming techniques, he revamps what would be a humble basket of I-IV-V chord progressions into a cornucopia of harmonic depth.
It’s refreshing to find a singer who, rather than veering from one lyrical cliché to another, ventures daringly down the one-way platitude highway without looking back. Lial pulls it off with gusto, putting in a performance that treads around topics that so often turn to soppy mush in the hands of less genuine singer songwriters.
Ending with a cover of Melanie’s highly infectious ‘Roller-skates’ it’s clear that I’ve just spent an evening in the company of raw talent.
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