Music
Alex Rex
Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
Four stars
“I’d like to welcome to the stage, Mike Heron and Samuel Beckett,” says Alex Neilson following a lull after the ever restless drummer introduced the now seventy-something former Incredible String Band icon as his special guest for the final song of a generation and genre spanning night. Named with a nod to Greek tragedy, Neilson’s latest incarnation casts himself as king, sporting a skeleton t-shirt while sat behind his drum-kit throne to declaim what he styles as ‘songs of love, loss and loathing’.
By this time, a stripped-down Storm the Palace has opened the night with a magnificent fusion of Sophie Dodds’ flying-V guitar and Reuben Taylor’s accordion, with Dodds’ vocal at times resembling Dagmar Krause at her Brechtian best. This is followed by surprise guest, Aidan O’Rourke, from Lau, who gives what is quite possibly the first ever solo fiddle rendition of traditional folk tunes to grace the Sneaky Pete’s stage. O’Rourke calls upon Neilson to read James Robertson’s 365-word short story, The Room is in Darkness, accompanying him with a cracked underscore.
This sets the tone for the arcane-sounding chorale that opens Alex Rex’s set, which, with guitarist Rory Haye, bass player Audrey Bizouerne and keyboardist Georgia Seddon in tow, mines the spirit of Desire era Bob Dylan and Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. Like both of his forebears, the tumble of Neilson’s lyrics possess an uncensored candour delivered with gallows humour beyond the life-and-death gravity of some of his subjects. This year’s second Alex Rex album, Otterburn, after all, focuses on the premature death of Neilson’s brother.
Despite this, Neilson wisecracks away between the likes of The Life of a Wave and Please God Make Me Good (But Not Now), from the band’s debut, Vermillion, and the gospel-tinged Latest Regret, from Otterburn. Occasional guitar wig-outs by Bizouerne are pulsed by the busy thwack of Neilson’s drums before things take a gothic turn, and Heron eventually makes it to the stage alongside fiddler John Wilson for a rousing massed finale to a rolling thunder revue in waiting.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here