A mini festival that had the cosiness of an intimate concert among friends
This was an evening that started by attending an open rehearsal of New Movement Collective at the recently RIBA awarded Rambert Dance School at Southbank. Having left from this insightful event on time for the solo of Lloyd James I arrived at Surya, on time for Fear Of The Forest for reasons that were beyond my control. It was the first time that I was listening to Fear Of The Forest live and having been recently introduced to their music, I expected to listen to something similar to Louisa John Kroll. The final result meant to prove me wrong as the band’s positioning on stage, gave off a rather traditional feel. Coming from Greece, the image of rebetiko bands is very strong in me, with members sitting next to each other forming a line or half a circle which opens to the audience. Fear Of The Forest had a very similar visual effect. The music, the positioning of Kate Arnold, her style and her voice, were the elements that differentiated this band from the almost old fashioned rebetiko bands of the 1950s. Jon Clayton, Nick Bieber,Chris Silvey and Mark Stefanicki,using a lot of instruments (cello, violin, dulcimer, daf) including some unusual ones (i.e. hurdy gurdy which is associated with the music traditions of Western Europe and Middle East) Fear Of The Forest played songs with soothing melodies and created a warm atmosphere that captured everyone’s attention. These melodies had elements from the music of Epirus and Crete in Greece, enriched with ethereal vocals.We listened to ‘Ordinary Man’, ‘Ruler Of Destiny, Thou Hast Spoken Words’, ‘Charlotte Anne (Julian Cope)’ before the setlist closed with a song that, sadly, referred to the singer’s own family and was called ‘Family ‘. This band’s appearance was registered with me as a very warm storytelling experience with music and I’ m looking forward to seeing them again in the near future.