Eric Chenaux / Robert Sotelo (live at The Islington )

London
5 December 2018

The good people at Upset The Rhythm have been trading for fifteen years now and the calibre of artists that they have to play seems to improve with every year. It feels as though they made their home at The Islington and tonight’s treats for the ears teamed UTR friend and recording artiste Robert Sotelo with Canadian guitar legend and Constellation label stalwart Eric Chenaux.

The crushed velvet and chandelier allied to the profusion of soft red light gives the back room at The Islington a cosy and intimate feel thatperfectly suited the everyday tales and mini-melodramas that Robert offered us. In contrast to the stripped-down one man and a synthesiser feel of his most recent cassette, this evening he and his trusty tiny tablet device were augmented by the mellow tones of tuba, clarinet and saxophone to give a further swell of emotion to his touching vignettes. Dressed in average clothes and sporting a baseball cap, he cuts an unprepossessing figure on stage, but when he starts to sing, you lose all thought of that and just find yourself carried away with the warmth and feeling he injects into the songs.

Mostly taken from the Botanicals, this evening’s set starts off with “Mary”, the tale of a poor unfortunate with whom Robert once spent time what feels like a lifetime ago. His synth-based meandering is given a New Orleans work out by the horn trio. There is a diffident purity to his delivery and a genuine sense of love for his subjects that cuts right through. “Looking Backwards” is slow and melancholy, with the tuba line lulling you gently, where as at other times, it seems as though the theme to Roobarb And Custard is being given some sort of subtle jazz overhaul.

The trio are there to underline the sentiments of the songs, but at times they can stretch their legs, particularly the sax player who has the chance to skronk a little on “Botanicals”, thereby wiping away the pseudo tropical feel of the album version. The final track, the delightful and slightly Pram-like treatise on ageing “I Dance In Dreams” gives the appreciative audience something on which to ponder as the band leaves the stage. Robert himself seemed unsure about fleshing the songs out in such a way, but for me, it added a little something unexpected and made the set just that little bit more special.

In contrast, Eric Chenaux travels really light. Spending a few moments setting up his equipment, plugging in rhythm station and all the various effects pedals he has accumulated brings him to the level of the audience. The guitar has two leads and he also mics the f-hole itself so the full effect will be ours to hear. He chose this evening to only play six tracks, most of them from the latest album, but playing just six will give him the opportunity to flesh them out and take the songs and the audience on an unexpected and thrilling journey. Now, the last time we saw him, he was employing the two wah-wahs and through the whole show it felt as though we were aboard some tiny vessel that was chopping its way across stormy seas, the boat bucking and swaying with he audience clinging on for dear life.This time around, although one of the wah-wahs is employed, the set is not so crazy and that gives us more time to appreciate his extraordinary guitar playing.

It is not often we have the chance to proclaim somebody’s sound as unique, but there is genuinely nobody that plays like Eric. Over years of fine-tuning, and testing things out on the road and in the studio, he has arrived at a sound that is unmistakably his. At one point whilst extolling the virtues of Baby Dee, he insisted that he had to follow his outer flow as he had no inner flow — but seriously, if Eric Chenaux has no inner flow, then nobody does. As each track snaked around the eight- to ten-minute mark, his fingers were stretching across the strangest shapes as chords that nobody else could ever conjure up flashed over our heads. His modest manner and wry interaction with the crowd made these fretboard gymnastics all the more extraordinary.

At some other point he suggested that it was impossible to stand up straight to his music and when somebody in the crowd felt that we weren’t standing straight, this gave him food for thought. He is right though, the sensation of motion and the feeling that every other guitar player that you have ever heard was wrong is par for the course here. We had to lean against walls or friends just to stay steady. It was all worth it though. When you leave the venue after an Eric Chenaux show, you listen to things in a different way and tonight was no exception, although it was exceptional.

-Words: Mr Olivetti-
-Pictures: Upset The Rhythm-