I wouldn’t have braved the sub-Siberian chill on Thursday night for many people. However, spurred on by the knowledge that Ms Luisa Gerstein, our very own Art Editor (I know, sickeningly multi-talented), was playing a gig with her band, Lulu and the Lampshades, I layered up, inspired by and perhaps a little hysterically, empathising with, my reading material of the moment – which was set in a Siberian labour camp – and headed off to Chalk Farm.
The atmosphere inside could not have been more different from the bitter chill outside. The sudden disjunction of the warm red room with Lulu and her two Lampshades a.k.a. second vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Heloise and bassist Jemma preparing to take centre stage, created an almost Lynchian sensation on entering the room; like passing from the real world into a slightly distorted fairytale world on the other side. A similar thing could be said of the girls’ music. On the surface these songs hit as tropical summer melodies, easy tunes for a beach holiday: a bit of whimsical instrumentation here, some cute dance moves there. What then was it that made them feel so right for the eerie midwinter gloom?
Somehow, despite their evident love for quirky, found instruments – the ukelele, paintbrush drumsticks and ankle bells among them – Lulu and the Lampshades didn’t have the laboured eccentricity and cutesiness of so many other bands doing the same thing at the moment. There was a darker note to these songs that gave bite to the sweetness of the rock ‘n’ roll, anti-folk and Latin American inspired sounds, that was partly attributable to the melancholy force of Luisa’s voice. Now this I have heard many times before, she is a fan of singing around the office as if no-one can hear, but live it was a revelation. Several shades richer and warmer than you’d expect from a girl with a laugh like a giggling six year old, it conveyed a sadness and a sexiness to the songs that rooted them in the adult rather than consigning them to fun, throwaway ephemera like their instruments.
Their slightly haphazard and unprofessional attitude was also perfectly tempered by “properly good musician” Jemma on bass, who kept the musical side of things in check at all times, never once letting things stray into “How did those charlatans ever get a gig?” territory. Indeed, even meriting a comparison with Hawaii-era Elvis – surely one of the slickest of the slick – from one member of the crowd, we can only assume that things are going to get better and better for these girls. They are definitely worth catching soon in a small intimate space where their talented, ramshackle performances can be best appreciated and their honey-toned songs can soothe against the cold.
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- Lulu and the Lampshades: Cold Water EP review
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