As a first guest, SBTRKT invite Denai Moore for the festivities, and she’s a good choice with a voice drawing similarities to the London Grammar girls, and this little woman embraces the big room.
‘I Swore’, from her upcoming EP, is intuitive and passionate, yet different from SBTRKT, Moore manages to touch the audience, her voice, especially when amplified, is tender and deep and her musicianship is equally impressive as she switches from keyboards to guitar seamlessly.
‘Part One’ is soft and relaxing creating a private ambiance in light of the small number present, who could sit and listen to her melodies all day.
The rendering is neat especially when Moore and her two acolytes are singing in unison and she finishes solo with a nice ballad to round off a professional and respectable performance.
Then it’s time for more electricity from the headliners, the engineers settle the stage and the lights creating an impatience within the audience, who are dancing already, bubbling up and little by little as the room fills.
SBTRKT frontman, Aaron Jerome, finally shows up wearing a mask looking like a new revenant from the prehistoric period, and with no words, just keyboards hits into a pretty long intro and the audience, although at start a bit shy, start to get into it as opener ‘Wildfire’ gets the rhythm going.
Jerome cites previous Glasgow appearances at Sub Club and The Arches before their growing reputation and popularity escalated them to this change of scenery before ‘Hold On’ makes the room erupt.
Jerome clearly loves to play with the vocals and every button, of which there are many, while also using a lot of percussion to add some African rhythm and inject some more energy into the room, which has the audience swinging, his movements and electronic techniques seem to be very natural, as he jumps from one keyboard to another you can tell that he really throws himself into it.
Near the end, he invites Moore back to sing with him on ‘Light’ and together, they constitute a great duo, but before the end SBTRKT has also another surprise for us as they perform a remix of Radiohead’s ‘Lotus Flower’, an atmospheric mix that uses rocky and electro tempo to create the perfect live outcome, before set ends in crazy fashion as ‘Right Thing To Do’ closes as we began, in swirling, smoky, post-midnight ambience.
Words: Juliette Carnejac
Photos: Jayjay Robertson
