Up From Below #3: Kevin Morby and Live At Leeds In The City
The North's best newsletter visits a new century
In this week’s issue: we have a little look around New Century Hall, Manchester’s newest venue for a Kevin Morby gig, and I have some picks that you should get to know before Live At Leeds In The City in the Autumn.
New Century Hall
The only gig for this week was my first visit to New Century Hall since it re-opened as a music venue/bar/hipster hangout last year. It feels new, smells quite alright, and charges £4 for a pint of your soft drink of choice. One of these things is bad.
Whilst you can’t escape the feeling that you’re watching a band in a secondary school assembly hall, with its wooden panelling and shiny floors, the sound does a decent enough job and it’s always nice to have somewhere new to see mid-size indie artists ply their trade that doesn’t have a O2 priority queue.
Plus, the lights on the ceiling make for a lovely Instagram story don’t they?
Kevin Morby
For the uninitiated, Kevin Morby is a singer-songwriter hailing from Kansas City, Missouri. His career started in indie and garage rock before shifting over to a folk sound, but his sound - particularly in a live setting - still pulls heavily from those origins. He’s a busy lad, pretty much going at a rate of an album per year since his solo career got going a decade ago with Harlem River.
His 2022 album, This Is A Photograph, was my most-played of the year, so it was a complete treat to see him touring it at this newsletter’s favourite venue, The Brudenell, back in September.
On this year’s tour, he’s armed with a similarly blinding set, with the added sprinkling of songs from the recently released companion to TIAP, More Photographs (A Continuum).
Speaking about that project, Morby said, “If This Is A Photograph is a house that you have been living inside of, then More Photographs is, perhaps, the same home just experienced differently. As if you, its inhabitant, have taken a tab of something psychedelic and now, suddenly, you've replaced your eyeglasses with kaleidoscopes.” Basically, it’s the same, but a little different.
The show was opened by a set from Macie Stewart (who is also providing backing vocals for Morby) who blends guitar and violin loops with her striking voice to create something really affecting.
This show at New Century Hall was a big step up in terms of capacity (1000 vs the 400 cap rooms he played in 2022), but you wouldn’t know the difference. Morby darts between flowing, garage rock jams and intimate, sprawling ballads with ease. He’s as comfortable thrashing out an extended coda for five minutes as he is crooning songs like Stop Before I Cry. On that record - written in the midst of your friend and mine, the Covid pandemic - he sings, “I wanna go out dancing / Soon as the world returns”. Now, Morby triumphantly switches things up, “I wanna go out dancing / Now that the world’s returned”.
Live At Leeds In The City
It’s that time of the year when Leeds’ most clumsily named festival comes round. Since the introduction of Live At Leeds In The Park in 2022, In The City has a new name and a renewed focus on smaller, lesser known artists coming to play in the city centre. The first wave of artists was announced last week (have a look at all of them here), and it’s pretty good!
In lieu of just one Discovery Corner this week, I’m giving you a couple, so take it in, enjoy it, the regularly scheduled one-belter-a-week format will return next week.
Hamish Hawk
Scotland produces some of the best straightforward, indie rock tunes at the minute (I’m thinking of your Fatherson’s, your We Were Promised Jetpacks’s), and Hamish Hawk fits that bill nicely too. His album from this past February, Angel Numbers, has a complete disdain for the modern world, which as you know, we appreciate around these parts: “The future is a factory / And I foresee it hating me / The brutalist industry I've seen / Not my scene”.
Cousin Tony’s Brand New Firebird
Look, they named themselves this on purpose. It’s hard to see past it. I won’t even bother trying. They’re part of a group of Australian indie bands at the minute doing really great things (Holy Holy being another standout). CTBNF tend to lean a bit art-poppy, which I don’t mind, especially when that involves throwing in as many horn solos as possible when it feels right. They also have a slower side that fits right in on some “Morning Coffee & Chill” Spotify playlists, which again, I don’t mind.
Gig Recs
Once again, we’re light on recs as the festivals take up the calendar! I’m travelling back to the 80s on Saturday at Let’s Rock Leeds, so if you’re also a middle aged man who is allegedly actually in his 20s, get on that.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra at Stylus - Friday 16th June
The Playlist
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