The George Lite Zone

Botanique, saturday night and the anticipation of another cracking nights musical entertainment. First out of the blocks the highly experimental tUnE yArDs. Singer Merill Garbus accompanied by a single guitarist wove together a web of time delayed drums, vocals and ukulele playing that defied belief. If she could have travelled back in time multiple times to provide a one woman chorus and rhythm section with herself it would have sounded a lot like this. Add in a cracking vocal range, at time soulful, bluesy and out and out playful, and you've got a unique and highly enjoyable act. I'm listening to their album BiRd BrAiNs now it's an excellent, if a bit bizarre, listen too. After the last reverbed echo's of Merill's vocals finally faded, on came support number two, a Canadian band called Sunset Rubdown. Fronted by keyboardist Spencer Krug, they hail from Montreal and got the crowd rocking along nicely prior to the main event. Their latest album is called Dragonslaye...

Here I am sitting listening to the excellent Brooklyn based band Dirty Projectors latest album, Bitte Orca and looking forward to their gig at Botanique tomorrow night. I'll post a review of the gig on the Zone at some stage over the weekend. In the meantime, here's the video to a track from their new album, Stillness Is A Move. You just gotta love a video with a Llama.

First off the support act at Botanique tonight, Wye Oak , were excellent. Hailing from Baltimore they're a two piece with Andy Stack on drums, keyboards and backing vocals, while the delightful Jenn Wasner provides lead vocals and guitars. A mix of rock and folk they were most impressive, so much so that I picked up a couple of signed albums, If Children , and The Knot , after the gig. How the hell Andy plays drums with one hand and keyboards with the other is beyond me. Jenn's vocal range was impressive, as was her guitar playing. All in all a good start to the night. As an aside, of their two albums to date, Jenn recommended The Knot as it is her favorite of the two. On to the main event, The Dodos . Before the concert I'd listened to a couple of Dodos albums, Visiter and the newly released Time to Die , playing on my Mac Book Pro as I type. Both are fairly solid albums, with the Visiter being more readily accessible, while the latter is more of a grower. Having heard th...

Tonights Chester French gig at Botanique's Rotonde was short, around 45 minutes, sweet and highly enjoyable. And with only 60 ish people in the audience, they managed to do what much bigger bands have failed to do here, and got the denizens of Brussels dancing en masse. Meanwhile yours truly did his one man mosh pit impression, pogoing along to the beat like some kind of demented dancing bear. The only track of theirs I'd heard before was She Loves Everybody which I aquired courtesy of a free download . I'll put that to rights later when I give the album I bought after the gig, Love the Future , a spin. Not a bad buy for 5 euros, signed by the dude with the mike. The band were formed by Maxwell Drummey and D.A. Wallach at Harvard University in 2003 and are named after the sculptor Daniel Chester French, who among other things designed the statue at the Lincoln memorial. A piece of trivia for the geek files - Chester French were one of the first bands to promote themselves...

I think I'm gonna be sad, think it's today... Well I was a bit on Friday night when I failed in my attempt to get a ticket to see the excellent Yo La Tengo at Botanique. Not wanting to maintain a maudlin mood for too long, and to avoid future disapointments of a giggish nature, I decided to get one step ahead of the game and purchase some concert tickets. First up next Tuesday is Chester French . I noticed they were playing Botanique, checked them out on-line and having discovered they have a good rep, decided to check them out. I came across The Dirty Projectors listening to their collaboration with David Byrne on the indie compilation Dark Was The Night . Any band favoured by Mr Psycho Killer has got to be worth a punt, as is the aforementioned compilation, which is most excellent by the way. Rounding off this little trilogy of musical delight is a subtle harmonic band from blighty. Quiet, introspective music from the godfathers of folk... Only kidding, I'm sure Motörhe...

After last weeks glories of Brit Pop featuring Official Secrets Act and Brakes , it was the turn of Uncle Sam and Canada's finest to close out the festival de Nuit. First on Botanique's Orangerie stage was a young girl from Brooklyn called Sharon Van Etten . Sharon has a voice of aching purity that is reminiscent of early Judie Tzuke, which is no bad thing. Singing songs from her soon to be released debut album, Because I Was in Love , she held the Brussels crowd captivated. Just a girl, a guitar and a voice to make the angels weep. On this performance and on listening to her album I'd say she's destined to go far in the music industry. I wish her well. I've only one thing to say about the second act, holy crap! The sonic attack that the Akron/Family hit us with was a total assault and battery of the senses. Waves of feedback, Gongesque chanting, free flowing Grateful Dead style jamming, these guys have it all and then some. Akron/Family are impossible to classif...

After the esoteric delights of Official Secrets Act , Brakes came on like a shot of adrenalin to the heart, power chords a ringing and telling lyrics a singing. Fan-bloody-tastic!!! Seamlessly blending elements of punk, country and rock together their performance had humor and dancibility in abundance. Eamon Hamilton's vocals at times were reminiscent of Michael Stipe's but flew the full spectrum from rawness to sweetness. Prior to Brakes, Eamon played keyboards with British Sea Power for 3 years, while guitarist Thomas White and his brother Alex (drums) were the nucleus of another Brighton based band The Electric Soft Parade . Mark Beatty was persuaded to play bass when the trio descended on his rehersal/recording rooms Mockin'bird Studios in Brighton. I think the events organisers must have confused Brakes with US band The Brakes as the programme had them down as a US band. After this performance from Brighton's finest you may as well confuse a Porupine with a Pinea...

It's not often I go to a gig on spec and end up seeing a great band. A last minute decision to descend on Botanique for Les Nuits festival resulted in an even rarer event, the discovery of two great bands I'd not heard before. The festival was spread across 4 sound stages with a new band playing on each every hour between 8:00 and 12:00. Cool. With so many acts to choose from I had a quick scan of the merchandise tables before taking my pick. In so doing I spotted two CD's with some decent reviews. Official Secrets Act - Understanding Electricity - "Excellent", "hugely energetic, needle sharp" NME; "ThunderouslyExciting" The Guardian and "This Band are ready." Zane Lowe. Breaks - Give Blood - "It's original, it's quirky and it rocks" The Sunday Telegraph; "Lunacy has seldom sounded more exhilerating" Q; "Pretty Much Perfect " Time Out; Full of fraught frivolous fun." NME 8/10; The melodic me...