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Talk about a man living his own music. With every
stab of the kick drum or incisive hit of the keyboard
Matthew Herbert's body seemed to be utterly under the
control of his own music, pulled around Koko's stage
by a team of invisible puppeteers, their routine
planned in advance to the nearest beat.
And yet this blue riband act of !K7 Records,
celebrating the label's coming of age this year, was
draped in a gold smoking jacket, twinned with black
shorts, with nothing on his feet. It was as if someone
had woken him up in the middle of the night to take an
urgent phone call, whereupon he found himself on
stage, blinking heavily in front of a near capacity
crowd.
Vocalist Neil Thomas followed suit, though
his design was a smarter black, indicating he had in
fact been up for some time. He sang with little
movement but deep emotion, taking over Dani
Siciliano's lines in the tracks from most recent
album Scale, and when he smiled had something of a
cheeky Martin Freeman about him. So impassioned
were some of his vocals, albeit with subtly delivery,
that Herbert's bobbing and weaving beats retired to
the middle ground, taking with them a delicate,
unobtrusive electronic clothing.
In this he was helped by a tight rhythm section,
achieved through a long and gruelling recent world
tour, of which this was the last stop. The drums were
basic but oh so bouncy, given extra muscle by the
funky bass. And while Herbert may have stopped well
short of employing chefs to cook on stage, as he did
recently at the Barbican, he took time out to sample
the crowd singing an assortment of 'C's, throwing it
back in a live demonstration of creative sampling.
In the week his 100lbs debut album has been
re-released it seemed appropriate to have Herbert back
in the electronic fold again. Snatches of the big band
remained - a sensitive muted trumpet solo here, a
rather more gregarious flute improvisation there - but
he was mostly content to offer his cool yet vivid
orchestration via the keyboards.
As Neil Thomas sang the crowd were mostly
attentive, caring not for the lack of a light show or
the relative lack of emotion on stage. The music did
the talking, and Herbert - himself only two years shy
of the label in musical age, left a happy man.
BUY Matthew Herbert - 100 Lbs
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