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Review: Jim Ghedi, Rough Trade – ‘Raw honesty and authenticity’
Epic and intimate, harsh and velvety smooth, uplifting and tearful: Jim Ghedi’s set at Rough Trade demonstrated why he is one of the UK’s finest folk talents.
An artist who deserves far more recognition and success, he combines a raw honesty and authenticity with true originality found to be lacking in some music calling itself ‘folk’.
Support comes from Bristol’s own boci with an understated solo set of looped, swirling violin, fingerpicked guitar and soft vocals.
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In lesser hands, a loop set has the potential to feel laboured, as the artist builds each layer slowly. But boci skillfully creates reverb and delay-drenched beds on which her vocal, classical-inspired violin and guitar lines can really shine, the looper an integral instrument in itself rather than just a tool to replace a few bandmates.
It’s a very intimate affair, with pindrop silence as boci tunes the guitar, sets up her own loops and effects, and speaks quietly to the crowd to introduce each song.
In a moment of real honesty she admits she’s feeling pretty nervous at this, her first gig in a while, and performing new material – songs from a conceptual album about an imagined world, due out at the end of May.
The crowd is supportive and reacts positively to her shimmering, textured and cinematic soundscapes.
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Strains of Lankum’s anthemic doom-folk version of Wild Rover fill the dark room, setting out Ghedi’s stall as he and bandmates David Grubb and Joe Danks take to the stage to minimal fanfare.
With a piercing, hawk-like stare Ghedi struggles briefly to get plugged in and comfortable – wryly telling the expectant crowd: “Sorry, just getting adjusted to all these fucking wires and shit”.
On his latest album Wasteland Ghedi has done a Bob Dylan c.1965 (sorry, too easy….) and has gone electric (gasp). Experimenting with psychedelic, rock and doom sounds for the first time he has strapped on a black Stratocaster, brought in a (very) rock-leaning drummer, and explored a much heavier sound.
Ghedi’s fiddler utilised a swathe of pedals and his drummer also played synth, creating a new ‘post-folk’ sound for the group
With the venue surprisingly quiet (seriously, where are all the folk heads at on this Friday night?), the show feels much more like a secret gig, a private event in someone’s front room, than a headline album tour show.
Focused largely on the new record, highlights tonight are title track Wasteland with fingerpicked electric guitar, beautiful falsetto pre-chorus – Ghedi’s vocal abilities are charged and on point tonight – and a stadium-folk chorus complete with shimmering violin.
Another highlight is the self-described post-folk of Sheaf & Feld – a reference to the Old English name for Sheffield – dedicated tonight to a posh journalist who took the mick out of his accent:
“We (Northerners) make art and music…we’re not just stuck down the mines and in caves,” says Ghedi before unleashing a tirade of Northern working class strength and ire in the form of a weighty riff worthy of Queens of the Stone Age or The Horrors, and a beat that has Danks half out of his drumstool, smacking his kit in visceral joy.
Jim is a natural storyteller, a wonderful original lyricist, and takes his links to the North East’s industrial and working class heritage extremely seriously.
An a capella version of Aw Cud Hew, a song originally written by Ed Pickford from County Durham, brings real tears to the eye as the band sing a beautifully painful narrative of a man suffering from coal disease after a life at the face.
The set is paced wonderfully and towards the end of the night Ghedi picks up his trusty acoustic and meets fiddle player Grubb in the middle of the small stage.
Grubb and Ghedi burst forth with ‘extraordinary’ and joyful renditions of two hornpipes learnt from Blowzabella that they had, Ghedi said, “fucked up”
They play an extraordinary rendition of a pair of traditional hornpipes, Newtondale and Blue John. With a perfect lilt and looks of total ease and joy they build on each round of the second tune as Danks joins in on booming floor tom with right hand and a synth bassline with his left.
The rest of Bristol missed something really special tonight.
All images: Ursula Billington
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