JOSH T. PEARSON / COLD SPECKS Royal Northern College Of Music, Manchester 21 November 2011
Cold Specks are a male/female vocal/guitar duo that, on this evidence, sound a little like Gillian Welch with an extra infusion of gospel, blues and spirituals. Vocalist Al Spx has to abandon their opening number three times due to the persistent threat of a coughing fit that never really amounts to anything, but the fourth’s the charm, unleashing the full potency of her spine-shivering vocals. If only the songwriting was as compelling as that voice.
You’d never guess from Josh T. Pearson’s sole solo album, “Last Of The Country Gentlemen”, but there’s a substantial comedy element to the former Lift To Experience man’s live performance; a mordant, bestial humour, admittedly, mining a rich seam in drummer jokes, but it’s there nevertheless. It helps to elongate an evening that’s barely six songs long (“We’ve got until 11 o’clock”, Pearson quips early on, “That’s four songs, three-and-a-half if you’re lucky!”), his rambling, spidery possible masterpieces expanding to fill the space available to them. Perhaps the second-biggest revelation of the evening is the way his fingers move like waves against the guitar strings to create his distinctive jagged, restive melodies. Surprise number three is when he covers “Rivers Of Babylon” and just as Mark Kozelek bends other peoples’ songs around his standard musical framework when he sings them so does Pearson, making The Melodians’ biblical reggae work his own.
Marred only by some kerfuffle and confusion when the allocated seats turn out to be nothing of the sort, this is a unique evening; great, unexpected and an acquired taste, but, judging how many of the audience appear to be returnees from the banter and reactions, an addictive one.
JOSH T. PEARSON Last Of The Country Gentlemen (Mute)
Bleak and hard going as it undoubtedly is, “Last Of The Country Gentlemen” is a classic of whatever genre it’s created, and if its another decade until Pearson’s next record he’s given us more than enough to chew on in the meantime. The vinyl edition arrives on quite good-sounding “180 gm heavy vinyl” with a bonus track and a CD of the album.