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Review: Eric Chenaux / RÓIS, the Cube – ‘Channelling the celestial’
It’s a close, sultry evening, the back door of the Cube is flung open to the garden. Eric Chenaux is mingling and chatting in the bar, taking full advantage of the Cube’s famously relaxed attitude to time keeping.
As he takes to the stage, Chenaux’s warmth and his affection for the Cube are immediately apparent.
He sets out the timetable of events (six songs but, he says, it’ll take him some time to get through them) and embarks on his musical peregrination.
Having never seen Chenaux live before, I am struck by how much his presence brings to the music. A lot of the performance is visual rather than aural, and there are moments of awkward humour that are lost on record.
Eric Chenaux: purveyor of jazz, folk and pop-inflected avant-garde balladry
For his first song, he sets an irregular electronic beat going, and it’s hard to get a handle on where it is taking us. When the guitar comes in, it’s contrapuntal and meandering, and doesn’t do much to alleviate the confusion. He seems to be wrestling with his guitar, trying to coax it into submission.
But then Chenaux’s vocals come in and it all makes sense. He might actually be a genius. His voice is a gorgeous, fragile soulful thing, hovering over the apparent chaos of his guitar and pedals, bringing it all together.
The sounds he elicits from his wayward instrument are fascinating. Sometimes it sounds like jazz guitar played on slack strings, producing sounds not unlike flatulence, while at other times it could be a disgruntled robot, a Modem come to life.
Elements of pop, jazz, and funk coalesce, but this is not merely pastiche. He puts his own wonderfully wonky signature on it, and above all, the otherworldly quality of his voice makes it unique.
RÓIS is next, arriving on stage with her drummer in full black mourning garb and faces covered with close fitting black lace, somewhere between a veil and a mask.
It’s a discomforting sight and quite a contrast to Chenaux’s easy presence. The mood shifts to dark anticipation. There’s no opening patter, just the ominous tolling of bells, and then straight in with RÓIS’ gut wrenching, beautiful sorrowful keening, from her 2024 EP, MO LÉAN.
ROIS’ set is a journey, taking the band and audience from darkness into light
The instrumentation to begin with is sparse, with the spotlight firmly on her incredible, ethereal voice. There’s the occasional whisper of drums, a suggestion of keys from the Korg, samples and gradually building layers of sound. This is heavy and intense, epic, and absolutely mesmerising.
Behind her, black and white film shimmers and glitches, showing images of raging torrents, dilapidated houses, weather beaten and battle-weary faces and places of Ireland.
There’s vintage footage of check-points and machine guns interspersed with children playing on swings and fishermen going out on boats, illuminating the prosaic grief of the Troubles.
There’s the sense of a journey about the structure of ROIS’s set, echoing the grieving process. The pure unmitigated anguish of the beginning, gradually builds, getting heavier and sumptuously oppressive until we’re almost at breaking point.
But then it begins to lift a little, and other emotions start to suggest themselves. There’s even a hint of humour, and RÓIS begins to utter the odd word to the audience here and there, as if coming out of a stupor.
She does a ravishing cover of Nirvana’s Something In The Way, and with this it’s as if she has just emerged from the underworld, blinking in the light.
The show covers poignant themes like the Troubles and mourning, and ends with a joyful display of sexuality
Then the mood shifts completely, and a third band member shimmies onto the stage wearing a red mask/veil and red stockings and bra. They sing a conversational duet introducing more than a hint of sex, and now RÓIS’ black mourning dress is ripped away to reveal a lurid red lace-trimmed nightie.
She’s fully in the world now and addresses the audience to tell us a “true story” about wake houses, where people go to mourn the dead, but also “for a ride”.
It’s a party atmosphere now, complete with Irish dancing, and the audience clap along with unadulterated joy, until the bells toll again to signal the end, and the band triumphantly swaggers off the stage to rapturous applause.
The artists’ styles were worlds apart but both enchanted and transported in equal measure
This was a show full of surprises, a joyful reminder of how exciting and life affirming live music can be. Both artists in their own way offer a spectacle – Chenaux’s is a subtle one, while RÓIS is powerful and theatrical.
While their music is very different, each seems to be able to channel something celestial with their voice. Both are remarkable, and the experience as a whole is profoundly enjoyable.
All images: Lucy Langley-Palmer
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