York was never built with the car in mind, something to which Jane Weaver will surely attest. When last in the medieval cathedral city a quarter of a century ago she had a 50 quid parking ticket slapped on the windscreen of her motor vehicle. Because of this perceived injustice, she vowed never to return. Fortunately, though, forgiveness is in the experimental pop musician’s nature, and she is back here again, this time to take to the stage of The Crescent Community Venue with her band.
Much has happened in Jane Weaver’s life since that fateful day in York, not least a recording career that properly ignited in the earlier years of this millennium and has since gone on to spawn eleven solo albums, all of which are connected by a sense of cosmic invention, self-determination, fierce independence, and an acute absence of convention.
Fresh from a successful string of dates Stateside supporting the venerable New Zealand rock band The Chills and ahead of a sold-out show at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday night, Jane Weaver has also found time recently to follow up on her work with Fenella, her collaborative side-project with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah, the synth player from her band. The innovative trio have just released their second album, The Metallic Index.
But tonight, Jane Weaver’s focus is firmly on her solo material. She brings with her to York a delightfully diverse baker’s dozen of songs, drawn entirely from three of her studio albums – 2014’s space-centric The Silver Globe; Modern Kosmology, released three years later and more progressive by design; and her most recent long player, last year’s career-high, Flock which provides us with nearly half of the setlist.
She knocks four songs from Flock straight off the bat and right out of the Crescent park, opening with the dreamy, lysergic swirl of ‘Pyramid Schemes’ before moving into the unashamedly insistent and downright contagious ‘Heartlow’. In this world psychedelic pop really matters. The strutting funk of ‘The Revolution of Super Visions’ then makes an early appearance, followed immediately by the more muscular stomp of ‘Stage of Phases’.
‘Slow Motion’ signals Jane Weaver’s first venture tonight into her previous past and even now, some eight years after its original release, you feel that this song should be regularly troubling the airwaves of commercial daytime radio. And you can see exactly why the title track from Modern Kosmology – well, all two minutes of it, Jane Weaver tells us somewhat apologetically – features on the soundtrack to Season Two of the British spy thriller television series, Killing Eve. It is a superbly physical tune, one that just sparkles and radiates.
‘Modern Kosmology’ sounds the bugle for the final sonic advance of the evening. You will the perennial thrill of ‘I Need A Connection’ to just continue long into the night, such is the allure of its addictive groove, before Jane Weaver and her band disappear back over the Pennines to Manchester with a febrile blast of ‘Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong’.
Jane Weaver at The Crescent, York was brought to us by Please Please You and Brudenell Presents.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from this show are HERE
