Sunday, 3 February 2013

Mike Heron & Trembling Bells: Heron addicts


I submitted this to The Fly a week ago. It isn't on their site, but should be soon. I love early ISB and once saw Mike Heron support Robyn Hitchcock. That was in 2010, I think. Anyway, Trembling Bells are ace and really made this Celtic Connections performance memorable. I had a painful headache on the evening but, like a true professional, neglected to mention this fact in my review. You know what else? I was only sitting next to the uncle of a member of folk instrumentalists Rura, wasn't I? A proud, proud man.

Two facts about Mike Heron:

1. Vinyl Villains is selling the majority of the Incredible String Band's discography and claims that each record was formerly Heron's personal copy.

2. The owner of my favourite record shop, VoxBoxMusic, once told me that Heron was so delighted to see a copy of his solo debut Smiling Men With Bad Reputations on display in-store that he returned with a small entourage hours later to point at it.

Mike Heron & Trembling Bells
The Mitchell Auditorium, Glasgow
24/1/13

Had songwriters Mike Heron and Robin Williamson split four or five albums into their career, the Incredible String Band's legacy would be immaculate. As things turned out, perception of their partnership has been tainted by knowledge of escalating animosity between the pair and their eventual foray into Scientology. Although the duo continued to produce interesting work as the seventies wore on, they came to embody the death of the previous decade's hippy dream and left many admirers disillusioned. Even long time producer and manager Joe Boyd now seems almost embarrassed by the duo, his memoirs suggesting that "Mike and Robin represent aspects of the sixties its survivors find most embarrassing... History has deemed ISB terminally unhip, forever identified with an incense-drenched, tripped out folkiness." What the Svengali failed to note is that for a horde of emerging psych folk stars, Joanna Newsom and Devandra Banhart among them, his former charges are as hip as it gets; they were never less than inventive and, at their best, made vital, forward thinking music.
Tonight Mike Heron shambles meekly on stage, his appearance calling to mind a shrunken Gerard Depardieu. He may not look the part, but it soon becomes clear that he's very much an artist re-invigorated. He's collaborating with Trembling Bells, Glasgow's leading purveyors of tripped out trad, and it's difficult to imagine more sympathetic allies. They encase the rickety likes of 'Greatest Friend' and 'Chinese White' in a shimmering, kaleidoscopic wall of sound and, while Heron's voice is initially lost in the mix, he becomes a gently authoritative presence as the evening progresses. Particularly impressive are 'Black Jack Davy''s freewheeling, fiddle led stomp, the rousing, unaccompanied harmonies of 'Sleepers Awake!' and the ecstatic, unfathomable 'Very Cellular Song'.
For their part, Trembling Bells' new arrangements of ISB tracks frequently surpass those of the originals and they respectfully leave their mark on a handful of Robin Williamson compositions, most notably the devotional 'Maya'. The mutual admiration between Heron and the group is obvious and the evening offers tantalising hope that the unassuming 70 year old may yet enjoy a long overdue second wind.

Lewis Porteous

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