[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”GvXKWajzd59XJt2Gt7TaopxjoaWObQiN”]<\/p>\n
IT’S something I never expected: Another tour by the spooky, chiming English folk-rock band The Clientele, who sort of broke up a few years ago.<\/p>\n
For a handful of reasons — the 25th anniversary of the band’s label (Merge), the reissue of their first LP, some new songs — the Clientele made a small U.S. tour, which on Saturday came through the club I still think of as Spaceland. (It’s now called the Satellite and is still reasonably intimate and with good sound, important for a band as reverb-drenched as the Clientele.)<\/p>\n
The show was mostly hypnotic and triumphant. This is a group dominated, on the surfac![\"photoshoot-bricklane-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/photoshoot-bricklane-1.jpg\")
e, by the Tom Verlaine-meets-Nick Drake guitar playing of its lead singer — melodic and bizarre arpeggios that seem like they could be developed forever: There’s something mysterious and open-ended about Alasdair Maclean’s playing. At the same time, they have one of the toughest rhythm sections I know, which grounds the songs from being shapeless or jam-band-like.<\/p>\n
It was nice to see the place packed with loyal and enthusiastic Clientele-heads.<\/p>\n
The band this time was a three-piece. This allowed us to hear the songs stripped down — the friend I was with (a formidable drummer\/bassist himself) said he preferred to hear the Clientele, who are often quite lush on record, with a more minimal lineup that exposed the structures of the songs. I must admit, as good as this was, I missed the violin that Mel Daisy provided on their last Satellite show. My ear wanted some kind of string voice.<\/p>\n
The other smaller disappointment: They didn’t play one of my favorite numbers, the title track to their last album, Bonfires on the Heath. I spoke to Maclean very briefly after the show and asked him why; he shot back, “Too new!”\u00a0 (These shows are in part designed to celebrate their early record Suburban Light<\/em>. My interview on the subject here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The best thing about the night was the appearance of a new song. Rumor has it this is one of five or six new ones, a few of which are likely to end up on an EP. Maclean has said he won’t keep the band going unless it seems to be moving forward artistically, which I can respect even though it saddens me to think we may’ve heard the last of them.<\/p>\n But it seems like the Clientele may have a future after all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [contextly_auto_sidebar id=”GvXKWajzd59XJt2Gt7TaopxjoaWObQiN”] IT’S something I never expected: Another tour by the spooky, chiming English folk-rock band The Clientele, who sort of broke up a few years ago. For a handful of reasons — the 25th anniversary of the band’s label (Merge), the reissue of their first LP, some new songs — the Clientele made a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[88,92,40,636,61],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-brit-culture","7":"category-britfolk","8":"category-indie","9":"category-merge-records","10":"category-spaceland","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}