Francois and The Atlas Mountains Mono Glasgow 17 11 09
Title: Francois and The Atlas Mountains - Mono Glasgow 17 11 09
Label: Fence
Cataloge No: N/A
Type: Live
Reviewer: Lucy
Date: 23, November, 2009
Mono – Vegan Café Bar and home of Stephen Pastel’s Monorail Record shop - is a Glasgow treasure. Where else in the world would you get a label’s biggest name (in this case Fence Records’ founder Kenny ‘King Creosote’ Anderson) taking the money on the door and DJ–ing 1980’s electro disco 12”s in between the bands?
The evening kicked off with a solo set from Fence first team regular The Pictish Trail, who battled a dose of the sniffles to render some of the acoustic loveliness from his album Secret Soundz Vol.1.
Next up was Rozi Plain, who demonstrated her quirky dress sense and quirkier vocals with songs from her Inside Over Here album, also on Fence.
Rozi was followed by fellow Bristolian, The Balky Mule AKA Sam Jones who played a selection of songs from his album for FatCat , The Length Of The Rail, very much in the DIY style. He performed shoeless to enable him to control a tiny Casio keyboard with his feet. Hidden in these plaintive lo-fi tunes were references to King Crimson, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and even Pavement. He even has a tune called Fence, fitting in with the theme of the evening.
Despite a very chatty meeting at the back of the venue of what might have been some particularly noisy Spanish vegans (sure a small oppressed minority?), Mono maintained it’s usual half gig/ half in-store vibe for the short set by Francois and The Atlas Mountains, a rotating line up of musicians which tonight comprised Francois Marry, Rozi Plain, Sam Jones and producer-percussionist Amaury Ranger, who turned out to be a demon on the selection of African drums and the calabash that dominated the front of the small stage.
Francois And The Atlas Mountains are a welcome signing for Fence; the album Plain Inondable (which Francois explains means flood plain – referring to the area of France where it was recorded last year), being a selection of beguiling Franglais pop tunes, piano melodies and vocal harmonies provided by a local a capella group. Tonight the collective provided an approximation of this with massed backing vocals and enthusiastic playing, particularly on the stand out track, Be Water. Francois, also barefoot, jumped from instrument to instrument energetically and by the end of the short set had launched himself off the stage to dance in the space left by the rather timid crowd.
Fence continue to delight their all too cult audience with their ever so slightly ramshackle charms, but they deserve to be heard by a larger audience.
Fence Collective Myspace
Francois Myspace
Pictish Trail Myspace
The Balky Mule Myspace
Rozi Plain Myspace
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