Live Review: SAM AMIDON, OTOUTO

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

Outside, the daylight gradually fades as a warm evening moves in. Inside the venue a small crowd is scattered through the room while onstage Otouto precisely deploy their bright staccatos of baritone guitar, synth, vocalisations and percussion into a remarkable whole. Songs feel empty and seem childlike in their sounds and simplicity, but they're deceptively complex. The brevity of the sounds they generate and the languid curling vocal forays across them give a sense of momentum and movement that is hypnotic. The use of environmental acoustics is expertly woven into the songs each a deft example of musical arrangement in which sounds are given room to be fully heard. A brushed snare, electric piano, cymbal-covered drum, a plucked motif and bizarre vocal noises; few bands seem to think as a sonic whole like this. Final song Balloon showcases a sense of humour as developed as their vocal harmonic skills.

By the time Sam Amidon takes to the stage the room is still only half-full, yet a surprisingly vocal crowd welcome him and drummer/keyboardist/bassist/sample-triggerer Chris Vatalaro. Opening with the title track of his most recent album I See the Sign, Vatalaro’s sometimes subtle and occasionally explosive drumming shows just how far from the recorded versions Amidon is willing to take these songs. Open, loose jazz reinterpretations of his reinterpretations of these ancient folk songs makes it seem that the bugbear of ‘songs bearing little resemblance to the recorded versions we all love’ might nuke any chance for connection. Thankfully, the night’s arrangements hew closer to the versions we know and love and freeform improvisation is that of a comedic not musical nature.

Amidon first tells us the band’s name is now John Cougar Melon Vacation and later illuminates us about a (fake) novel he’s writing about a guy called King Speachy and a secret songwriting society in rural Connecticut (‘the people who write all the songs’) including Johnny Depp's long-forgotten hit album In the Depp End. All of which makes for a break from the stunning, hushing delicacy of sorrowful ballads like O Death, Rain and Snow, Wild Bill Jones and his breathtakingly delicate versions of Prodigal Son and Saro. The death count runs as high as a Nick Cave album, but the gift Amidon brings is a solemn respect for the songs, reverence to their subjects and a playful way with his interpretations, a way that makes room for exaggerated mid-song death scenes and, weirdly and spontaneously, 30 push ups. So the appearance of Beth Orton firstly at the bar, then on the stage is another unexpected thrill as she lends her harmonies to old nursery rhyme Joanna Row-di and a flooring take on Big Star’s Thirteen. While the audience provides spooky and beautiful vocals on Way Go Lily, hearing Orton’s pure tones in such a venue is a rare experience.

Songs such as Wedding Dress, banjo-lead How Come That Blood and You’d Better Mind stray into bluegrass territory, a place the audience follow as we rowdily, if messily, accentuate the rhythms. Highlight of the night however comes late as the album-closing segue of Climbing High Mountains and R. Kelly’s Relief helps push this gig into one of the best in recent memory, audience sing-along and all.

SIGN LANGUAGE - An interview with Sam Amidon

In the crazy, heady world of indie music, one man with a calm voice, a guitar, some talented friends and a wealth of ideas can tune up, tone down and stand out; just don’t call him a folk musician.

“Well, I just spent a week back with the family in Vermont,” sighs Sam Amidon down the line from a hotel in Los Angeles, in explanation of his recent activities. “Growing up there in Brattleboro played a big role in how things have come about for me. It’s full of wonderful folk musicians and artists and I was lucky to grow up around their songs. I really took it for granted in a way, it’s such a strange place,’ he continues contemplatively. “It got a huge influx of hippies and artists in the 1970s and they made friends with the farmers in the area. So, now you have a lot of indie bands like Happy Birthday and Tune-Yards and a lot of folk musicians born in the 70s and 80. It’s kind of amazing really, but growing up there I just cared that it had a CD store.’

Despite being born into a neo-hippie utopia where everyone sang and churned butter while dodging the draft and forming fair trade collectives years before it was hip, Amidon decided that his burgeoning love of experimental music and free jazz necessitated a move to the big smoke. “I moved to New York to get away from those songs and that environment, he says, "but after a while, that’s what I found liked singing; these old folk songs. I’ve always loved working with musicians from different backgrounds and when I was living there I’d always move between groups of musicians and we’d work on each other's projects.” 


This breadth of collaborative experience is particularly palpable on his most recent album  I Saw the Sign, a collection of haunting songs we can expect to be highlighted at Amidon’s shows. Much loved cred-tastic arranger Nico Muhly, Melbourne’s own noise manipulator and Brian Eno-associate Ben Frost, Björk’s (and now Feist’s) go-to producer Valgeir Sigurðsson and Beth Orton, all make impressive and unusual contributions. In a way I See the Sign, and his preceding album, the attention-grabbing All is Well are demonstrations of how to integrate disparate talents into a powerful, uncluttered whole. 

“It ended being an apocalyptic little batch of songs,” laughs Amidon. “Most songs came from New England, some from the Georgia Sea Islands; hymns, children’s songs, I find songs from all over the place. Alan Lomax’s field recordings, singers that I love, folk music singers today, my parents or whoever, finding them is a random process. I’m not a scholar, I don’t have a huge archive, but a song I like has to be one that gets stuck in my head. And it’s not like I live the songs,” he says laughing 'they're full of sorrow and killing. If my life expressed the predicaments of my folk songs in a literal way I'd be a gangster rapper.”

“The truth is,' he states matter-of-factly, I don’t play folk music. If I did I’d play the songs as I learned them or first heard them, but I make these albums only when I feel I’ve done something to them musically. I’m not against people singing them straight, I’ll make one of those albums one day probably, but all of these songs I change around a lot.” It’s noticeable that his songs have often undergone decades of refashioning or disappearance only to emerge as new again, interpreted by Amidon and enhanced by his friends, which suggests a role of a cultural preservation institute as much as a musician. “It’s true,” he says, the big step is reworking the songs. Often, I’ll find some lyrics to a folk song, which will fit to a piece of guitar that I’ve written - I never write the lyrics but the music I do - which changes the meaning of things. Then maybe I’ll change the harmonies around; that’s the step that happens before I take it to Nico or my collaborators. Once I bring it to them, it’s almost like a series of exchanges; I never give them direction, and they’d probably ignore it if I did, they just take them away and work on it. I’ve always loved improvised music, if you sit down to play free jazz with someone and have no idea what they’re going to do you have a dialogue at that point. And that seems more interesting to me and better for the songs, than giving directions. Making the album is almost like an improvisation process.”

This improvisatory process is something we can expect to see at his forthcoming shows. “For a couple of gigs I’ll have some amazing multi instrumentalists and you never know where Beth Orton will turn up,” he says with an audible grin. More than that, he won’t say. “I’m working on a new album at the moment but…uhh…I can’t really talk about that either,” he laughs. “It's going to be a bit different from the last couple of albums...but of course in 2012 with demigods Roland Emmerich and Kirsten Dunst playing a strong but ambiguous role in our dates, the future is uncertain.”

Since he gained attention and plaudits for All is Well Amidon has been straddling the folk and indie rock worlds in equal measure, despite thinking of himself as a ‘jazz nerd’. “I think the folk and indie worlds are very different communities, but I do see myself as fitting into both. I maybe don’t fit into one of them alone, but that’s part of the whole New York thing I mentioned earlier,” he says pausing. “In this day and age with the internet, scene or genre distinction is not so important. One night I’ll be with Nico Mulhy in a classical music hall, next night I’m in an indie rock club, then I’m playing Irish fiddle tunes in abar; three days in a row in totally different environments! I love that.”

So, is this proclivity for interpreting old or unusual songs - I See the Sign does include a subtly stunning version of R. Kelly’s Relief  - simply due to the fact that there are too many songs in the world already? Amidon laughs. “As a listener I often feel that way, but as a musician, it’s less conceptual than that. These are songs I’ve found that I love singing, it’s not like a conceptual art project in that sense, at the same time it’s a project that I’m surprised I’ve stuck with for as long as I have. Maybe I won’t do it forever, but at the moment these songs are much better than songs I can write,” he says with another open laugh, "so I'm sticking with it".