Cass McCombs is a man of very few words. Beyond a few obligatory “thank-yous” and the introduction of his three band members, he says virtually nothing all night. But there again he has little cause to. McCombs’ music does all the talking for him. And it speaks volumes.
The man from Northern California is now four dates into his extensive European Winter Tour, one that will see him and his band play another couple of shows in the UK before heading off to Central Europe. The tour forms part of the ongoing promotion of this eighth, and most recent full-length album Mangy Love. Released in August of last year it was greeted with universal acclaim – the glowing God Is In The TV review is featured here – and was quickly regarded by most commentators as being McCombs’ most consistent and affecting work to date, one characterised by its topical reflections on socio-political issues and wonderfully unassuming sonic grooves.
Given the primary purpose of the tour, material from Mangy Love is understandably showcased this evening though not perhaps as extensively as you might expect. Cass McCombs is, after all, a man who goes his own way and he has already trod the most singular of paths in a career in music that now stretches back to the fag-end of the last century when he first started playing with various bands in San Francisco’s Bay Area.
Tonight’s show embraces 13 songs that cover his entire recorded career. Whether by accident or design, the first half of this show is exclusively devoted to material from Mangy Love and its predecessor, 2013’s Big Wheel and Others, with the second half lending itself to songs taken from all of McCombs’ earlier long-players (with the exception of his second album, PREfection). It is testament to McCombs artistry that regardless of their location in his discography, these songs are presented here as a wonderfully seamless narrative, an expansive, crystalline kaleidoscope of psychedelia, pop, rock, funk and so much more besides.
Mangy Love was co-produced Cass McCombs, the Elliott Smith-collaborator Rob Schnapf and Dan Horne whose past associations include playing in fellow American Jonathan Wilson’s band. Given this and the fact that Horne is standing right beside McCombs tonight playing some exquisite bass guitar, Jonathan Wilson and his conjuration of the Californian spirit in the early 1970s is a clear and present musical reference point. But a far greater touchstone is surely that of a man who was actually there during that period, Jorma Kaukonen and Hot Tuna, the folk- blues band that evolved in the late 60s as a side project to those seminal San Francisco psychedelics Jefferson Airplane. This comparison is never more apparent than during a quite incredible ‘Medusa’s Outhouse’ where McCombs achieves a wonderful keening falsetto that eventually disappears into a glorious vortex of cosmic guitar before it blasts off in the general direction of Saturn and eventually comes back down to Earth in what seems like light years later.
That this most special of gigs should be taking place at the Brudenell Social Club during Independent Venue Week – a celebration of small music venues around the UK and the crucial part that they play at the very heart of the live music industry – not only adds to the emotional gravitas of tonight’s show but reinforces Cass McCombs place as one of the finest, most fierce, independent musical spirits that is around today.
Photos: Simon Godley
Cass McCombs has just released his new video for ‘I’m A Shoe’, taken from the album Mangy Love. The video is directed by Rachael Pony Cassells.
