Upset The Rhythm presents…
RICHARD DAWSON
(Live band show)
Wednesday 20 December
Islington Assembly Hall, Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 2UD
7pm | £15 | https://www.wegottickets.com/event/412137
RICHARD DAWSON can never been accused by listeners of a lack of artistic ambition. Whether they got on at the last stop - the 4 track Tyneside-Trout-Mask-through a-Vic and Bob-filter of ‘Nothing Important’ - or earlier in the journey, with ‘The Glass Trunk’s visceral song cycle or ‘The Magic Bridge’s sombre revels. Devotees of his earlier recordings will be at once intrigued by and slightly fearful of the prospect of a record that could make those three landmark releases look like formative work. ‘Peasant’ is that album, released on June 2nd through Weird World / Domino. From its first beguilingly muted fanfare to its spectacular climax exploring a Dark Ages masseuse’s dangerous fascination with a mysterious artefact called the Pin of Quib, it will grab newcomers to Dawson’s work by the scruff of the neck and refuse to let them go until they have signed a pledge of life-long allegiance.
Driven forward by exhilarating guitar flurries, Qawwali handclaps and bursts of choral ferocity, ‘Peasant’s eleven tracks sustain a momentum worthy of the lyrics’ urgent subject matter. Dawson describes the themes of these songs as “Families struggling, families being broken up by circumstance, and - how do you keep it together? In the face of all of these horrors that life, or some system of life, is throwing at you?” The fact that these meticulously wrought narratives all unfold in the pre-mediaeval North Eastern kingdom of Bryneich - “any time from about 450AD to 780AD, after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire”- only makes their contemporary relevance more enduring.
Dawson’s objective was to create “A panorama of a society which is at odds with itself and has great sickness in it, and perhaps doesn’t take responsibility – blame going in all the wrong directions”. But encountering ‘Peasant’s captivating sequence of occupational archetypes (‘Herald’, ‘Ogre’, ‘Weaver’, Scientist’), listeners might find themselves wondering if these multitudes could somehow be contained with one person. Dawson has already supported the release of ‘Peasant’ with a full UK tour – his first featuring a full live band. After wowing audiences at St John On Bethnal Green this June, it’s a pleasure to welcome Richard back for an Xmas show with live band to play the esteemed Islington Assembly Hall.
http://richarddawson.net/
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