Ben De La Cour – Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham: Live Review – At The Barrier

Songs of the soft white navel, delicate songs of no small beauty. We’re in Birmingham to see Ben De La Cour.

AMERICANOIR

So what else to do on a slow Sunday in July when nothing else seems to be happening, what better reason than to visit a favorite little spot and catch the singer-songwriter of one of the best records of last year. Unless you’re familiar with that record, Sweet Anhedonia, or its predecessors, chances are the name means little. Which is a travesty, because his songs of melancholy, often embracing the downtrodden and the ignored, the unlucky and the reckless, are a delicacy to be acquired that lingers long on the senses.

kidding; A slow Sunday it was not, as the neighboring bar, let alone the entire city, even the country, seemed glued to televisions in legion-licensed premises in vain search for desire over the outcome of a football match. De La Cour took this bump in his potential audience on the chin, happy to sing to the twenty-odd souls who had more taste than judgment. On a short tour, mostly to attend the Maverick festival, he and his battered guitar seem to be enjoying the experience, and at this exposure, so did we.

“Americanoir” is how his own website describes his muse, and that’s a good interpretation. The songs, very much in a story way, evoke the Townes Van Zandt songbook, with a bit of James McMurtrey-like weirdness thrown in for good measure. I don’t know if your Facebook feeds and rolls include exotica like Mark Laita’s Soft White Underbelly, but if you’re familiar, it feels like these are De La Cour’s people, unless his thin youthful vigor hides a reality hideous, hidden. , a picture in his attic. With a neat and ingenious way with words, if the songs don’t get you, the lyrics certainly will.

The KGC we know, a cozy and intimate space where musicians can feel safe to be themselves; anything else would stick out like a sore thumb. Indeed, the number of punters is almost immaterial, the walls seeming able to shift in and out, a place where even an 80-person capacity can feel like a cozy living room. Ideal for this kind of show. 20.00 saw the strike as he came in from the side. No stage as such, just the space in front of the seats, he plugged in his acoustics and off we went.

SWEET ANHEDONIA

With most of the set selected from Sweet Anhedonia, here was the opportunity to hear these plaintive songs stripped down, with no backings, guitar and vocals and nothing else. With F,O,L,K emblazoned on the fingers of his right hand, it took a while to discern H,E,R,O on the other. I will buy this! Only Son of God, actually from the previous outing, Shadow Land, for starters, and was a good example of his lyrical style, invoking a vengeful God, religious imagery through the eyes of a mean preacher; think of Bob Mitchum in Night Of The Hunter and the smell of “death and gasoline”.

Properly warmed up, his uplifting song, Appalachian Book of the Dead added gothic, suddenly chill malevolence to the room: “The dead hate the living, but what do they know? Just little white crosses on a county road.” Like many of our best dark bards, between songs, the singer was altogether a good eye, with a wry sense of his own lack in the big picture. Apologies came frequently for his deadened voice, seemingly more so for his perception, any cracks and creaks only adding to the delicious brilliance of his storytelling.

APPALACHIAN THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

A set in two halves, each roughly 40 minutes long, it rarely strayed from its cheerless territory, which, perhaps strangely, only seemed to heighten the joy of the audience, straining to catch up as each bon mot tumbled out of the singer’s mouth , eyes closed. (He actually sang a rousing, happy song, a song recorded only at his manager’s insistence. Ironically, I forget what it was.)

We’ve got Numbers Game, Suicide Of Town and Shine On The Highway, all from Sweet Anhedonia, the latter with a handful of phrases to savour: “Some people get old here, some get weird“, “The kids got here as fast as they could, one to St Pauls, one to no good“, “Time heals all wounds, time sometimes forgets“, all great things, Leonard Cohen via Charles Bukowski. Older songs like Tupelo and Amazing Grace (Slight Return) also got an outing, all to raves from the room. Less singing these songs, De La Cour lives them, with one eye-catching moment coming when the plectrum slipped out of his hand. Not pausing, she slowly leaned forward, plucking it off the ground and continuing, a move he would have frowned upon if he’d known it was going to happen.

With precious bleeding from the bar next door, a loud cheer came just as he slowed down, as if urging him to do something more. Dulce Anhedonia, the title track, was held close to his chest, so it only came out as a future put closer. Now it wasn’t just his eyes that were closed, and the room was now blind to the fun, soundlessly singing the song. I have to say again how his rhyme of “I know you” with “Anhedonia” is a Pulitzer Prize winning couplet?

Finally, unsure if he was done or not, asking his sound man if he should pull the plug, he was forced to do another one, a new one. He described this song, Christina, as his attempt to write a complete story, or sell the soul of a story, in just one minute. Another dark vignette with a couplet that revolves around what might kill the protagonist, Christina, I guess, doesn’t kill her yet. In fact, maybe only twice in that minute, but no one was counting. Big smile and a hint that a new album could follow in the fall.or anytime“, and he left. I never found out what happened in football.

Here’s Ben De La Cour’s Appalachian Book Of the Dead for a show in his hometown of East Nashville. (I think the East is important!)

Ben de La Cour: Website / Facebook

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