Reviewed on Friday March 6
Taking cues from the more muscular end of Big Star’s catalogue, Community Radio are a low-key but accomplished jangle pop outfit with just enough light and shade in their work to balance out their generally sunny sound. Kicking off with the rough around the edges but tuneful ‘Real Transformation’, they’re easy to like and even B-sides like the chugging ‘Wildflower’ are catchy enough to lodge themselves in your head well after their short set ends.
The country noir of Jep And Dep is a real change of mood; the duo’s sombre and sardonic country seems descended from the great Johnny and June Carter Cash duets. While they appear irked at times by people talking, the deliciously dark likes of ‘Wake Up Call’ and ‘Granted’ start winning people over, and by their final (and best) song ‘Tears In The Rain’, the kind of heartbroken country that Lee Hazlewood might have covered, they are playing to an appreciative silence.
Gruff Rhys’ American Interior is an unusually engrossing concept album, based on John Evans, Rhys’ 18th century ancestor who made an ill-fated trek to the United States to track down a mythical Welsh-speaking Indian tribe. It’s a tragicomic marvel of a record that probably would have made for a perfectly arresting set played on an acoustic without any embellishment; instead the live show is more a multimedia extravaganza than a straight presentation of the songs.
Not only does Rhys introduce the show with a deadpan ‘safety video’, he offers a hilariously straight-faced commentary on black-and-white slides that show a John Evans puppet on various stages of his journey from Wales to the most remote areas of America’s river system. From the gorgeous looped pop of ‘American Interior’ to the earworm ‘Iolo’ and the genuine melancholy of ‘The Last Conquistador’, the songs flesh out the tale, making potentially esoteric subject matter emotionally involving.
As Rhys plays along with seven-inch records and metronomes and enlists audience members to recreate a particularly tense episode in Evans’ adventure, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the whole thing. One of the many eccentric touches involves him holding up signs with instructions for the audience. Not only is the “PROLONGED APPLAUSE” sign well deserved, but there is a collective sigh when Rhys finally raises a card reading “THE END”.
