Live Reviews December 2006
Just one live review this month for Morning Bride in Essex. See you next year!

Morning Bride - Altered States at the The Bassment Bar, Chelmsford - December 2006
Review by Lilly Novak

"Where are we again?" was the roundly said refrain on stepping from the quick train ride out from Liverpool Street Station. Chelmsford in Essex is the answer, where Mr. Ian Flavill has seen it as his duty to kindly bring the good and great offerings of Americana, commonly only available to bigger cities, all the way out here to the 'made' or made up folks of places east, o so northeast of London. Down a dark street of unremarked repute into what could easily be an office suite of small town America we enter and descend. A strange place this is, transfixed into a wood floored, low-ceilinged venue smelling for all its no smoking policy just like a pub. Clearly the landlord here is music devotee of the best order. Photos adorn: The Rat Pack, The Beatles, Willie Nelson and Satchmo, John Lee Hooker and even John Coltrane. Ian calls his nights here Altered States, and indeed I do feel like I'm in an altered home.

It's been a good while since I've written about Morning Bride. The band have adjusted themselves nicely to accommodate their upcoming gleaming future. Joining the poet Mark, the muse Amity and time-keeper jesus-like-Jim are Alexa on cello and Pete on guitar. Over the intervening time MB's sound is predictably more polished and more special. The first thing I'm clear on is how much space the new guitar is giving to the often delicate, often explosive voice of Amity.

Besides a well earned space for her there is much more blues current that greatly gives a needed underlay to that rich foundation of heartache MB represent so well. In fact, the new amount of space Pete is providing gives a lot more room to hear all of the music; even Jim's plaintive drumming is more clear, more hearable.

I spoke with Mark post show to find out more about the new members. He tells me Pete is an old friend from the Stoke Newington scene. When MB were recently looking for a new guitarist, Pete coincidentally had some spare time and had just spent a summer in Devon playing folk festivals and perfecting his slide guitar. Mark says, "Pete became the perfect candidate from our short list of exactly one." The invitation extended to Pete to join MB seems to have been fated. Tonight the band is running through their list of what is to become the first full length recording, Lea Valley Delta Blues. I find myself more lost in listening than writing this review. I expect "Faith is Blind" to be my favourite song tonight. It is a perfectly simple showcase of Amity's voice and Mark's effortless twist of cliché-rendering lyrics. I also expect the the lump that arrives in the throat on cue and the burning of a would be tear for another home-hitter, "Stepping Out in Front of Cars." What I don't expect is the haunting (which stayed with me long after) of "Eleanora" and the sweetness of "Time Delay". During the latter, Mark tells the band to "make it nice and slow..." One gets the sense of his gentle leadership, but it is always remarkable how much this band works together, one for all. They have developed their own style of playing off each other perfectly and it is always this that gets spoken of, rather than there being a front person or star syndrome happening. Other bands might well have folded under the pressure of new members and sound changes. Morning Bride simply widen their arms to embrace the expansion of their developing scope.

There is a little scratch at the back of Amity's pure voice tonight that ends every last word like an etching of a dream. There are new songs and I'm damned if I know how Mark writes these tales so purely that they stay on repeat in the brain for weeks without hearing the actual songs again. When I asked Mark where the songs come from he said , "None of the songs are about one particular person or experience, rather they are a conglomeration of learned tales and I kind of magpie other peoples' embellished personal histories and my own experiences and put them together until the meanings are a bit blurred." I want to know why the songs are so beautifully sad and Mark tells me, "I gravitate towards sadness because people can relate to sad songs more easily but there's always the thing where conflict and loss lead to hope in the end. You have to be quite happy to immerse yourself in memories of your own or someone else's tragedies and write about those less than happy things."

On reflection I realize that empathy may be a particular key to Mark's amazing song writing. His songs belie the contagion that pain is and draw forth one's own heartbreaks and they are elevated by the beauty which only music in its darkest lower chords can express. Still, we wouldn't be able to stand that much effusion if it weren't tempered by a promise of a reckoning, a light at the end. So Morning Bride gives it all with that shaded poetry sweetened by the delivery of Amity and her voice that sparkles purely with a white, radiating salvation. The other voice that has been added recently to MB is Alexa with her sublime cello. She pulls the strings of a newer sophistication for the band.

The smoothness of the cello dropped in below Amity's voice creates a velvetizing harmony which is broad and brave. Alexa's unbridled joy in playing is obvious in her smile and I always love to see a band enjoying themselves. Alexa joined the band only weeks ago after a chance meeting of acquaintances. Her classical training and sought after performance skills left her with RSI that could have broken her spirit but instead inspired her to seek out something more contemporary. MB's best friend Fate stepped in again as Mark had four songs in mind that he wanted a cello on. Alexa tried out, and became a full time member. Amity tells me, "Singing with the cello is challenging as it's the most melodic and vocal instrument. I can do more creating as Alexa is coming up with counter melodies. Sometimes they clash and we have to work it out to get the right harmonies." With all the new enthusiasm and creating going on, one marvels at the future for Morning Bride.

I always study the audience as well as the band when I'm after a review. Morning Bride's audience tonight do them proud with their rapt attention. It's touching to see people obviously moved by what they're hearing. The faces reflect the hurt and the hope MB are soundtracking. Folks become reverent and their eyes close and their mouths move. Their drinks go untouched, watery as their eyes; ice melts and so do hearts. It's so awfully easy to imagine yourself on the highway, hearing this broadcast to everyone but believing it's your's alone. Driving out through the desert, or maybe just down to Morning Bride's next gig. Even better, come springtime you can drive to your local independent fair play record store and get a copy of Lea Valley Delta Blues all for yourself.