Bird - Hypnotise cut

Bird

Janie Price

Date - 7 March 2016
Venue -  Groucho Club, Soho, London
Current Album - Figments Of Our Imagination
Single - Hypnotise

Live dates -
12 April - Tivoli, Utrecht, Netherlands
14 April - De Roma, Borgerhout, Belgium
21 April - Capitole, Gent, Belgium

Bird is an art form in herself. Like all good artworks there is both a nod to the future and a drawing upon the past, whether distant, imagined or just experienced. The world and time push around Bird, 'Lucky' is like waiting for a train and then have it defiantly charge past you when your back is turned. The new single 'Hypnotise', released today, is a charmer, a slight of hand that tangles like a magnetic snake. 'Small Town' as the name might suggest builds brick upon red brick, it is proud to be urban, like much of her work. Light slants through doorways, fragments of people with overlapping lives, the way you cannot stop the glue oozing out of a collage of magazine pieces. She is layered purity and dirty light. 'Small Town' provides us with a front door peephole so that we can look out with safety and guilt. What we see is a world of cut outs, a living breathing world that has been spliced by Matisse's hand. It is clean and crisp, angular and sharp. It is a pinpoint of colour that burns like the sun through this city's lens.

AL.

Jane Badler - Serpentine desires



Jane Badler

With the attitude and charisma you would expect, Jane Badler showcased her talents at Soho's Groucho Club last week (03/06/2014). Her double A-side single 'Losing You/Volcano Boy' will be released on 7th July and the album, 'Opus', not too far behind. Many of you will know her in one of her guises as leading lady, B-movie femme-fatale and Sci-fi legend over the past 30 years but here she was a singer and more impressively a live performer.


Jeff Bova

Jane Badler announced herself in the Groucho Club's panelled room in typically dramatically fashion. With chiffon headscarf draped over dark curls her 'bad nun' persona piqued many a fantasy in the crowd. Badler knew how to charm a crowd with just her physical presence. Dressed from head to foot in black she swayed her body as the first notes of 'Addicted' unfurled into the audience. It was a lure. You felt the danger as her Pseudechis slink gripped your desires more powerfully than any Constrictor. She is a Viper and she knows it.

Jonathan Noyce - bass

Tipping a nod to her roots 'Addicted' has a Bond-esque fullness that has as much to do with Jane Badler's past as it does to Jeff Bova who performed alongside her on keyboards. Stepping out from the shadows as producer, Bova was clearly enjoying himself, his jovial smile not waning once during the 45 minute set.

Greg Bone - guitar

Early apologies for not sketching the fiery Lily Gonzalez on bongos/percussion and grabbing just a quick impression of Jonathan Noyce on bass. I was awarded a clear view of guitarist Greg Bone but in all honesty the eyes always rested back on our Serpentine seductress.

Jane Badler is at her best when her lyrics scream of bad behaviour and subversive intent. Her magnetic pull was at its weakest when she played her compositions straight and loving. She is more than one-dimensional though and both the grittiness of guitar led filth and synth dominated kitsch suit her ample skills. The opposing influences of disco and punk that must have influenced Badler's teen years in New York were comfortable bedfellows for once.

What we want we got. Jane Badler completed her London sojourn by washing her dirty linen in public. Her final moments on stage were spent sniffing a pair of black silk stockings. It was the best of her. Afterwards we fittingly walked out into London's oozing Soho for some more degenerate behaviour, although for once my dirty linen remained firmly hidden from view.

AL.