Oh boy, was this special! I don't often feel moved to dash off a gushing eulogy for a gig, but Tamara Williamson tonight was just sublime. I've probably mentioned her on the list before, but a quick recap: she's English and has been living in Canada for about 10 years. She used to be in a band called Mrs Torrance (check out the reference to The Shining), and now performs mostly solo, sometimes with a band. She is a superb singer and songwriter, with a sweet and true voice and songs that really speak to the heart and mind; some of them are a bit Siberryesque (high praise from me, as y'all know :-) - delicate, wry and utterly lovely. As if this were not enough, Tamara is also the most inventive exponent of "live sampling" I've ever seen - she plays a Gibson electric guitar, and "samples" both the guitar and her voice using echo and delay pedals, which she operates with amazing facility, creating beautiful harmonies, percussion sounds by hitting the guitar and'or the mic and looping, sometimes hitting a switch and making a particular sound come out backwards. If all this sounds like a bit of a mess, the wonder of it is that it doesn't, not at all - her humour and humanity shine through. Tonight, she was on stunning form, and the icing on top was a couple of musicians who'd been at her gig on Friday (which I was also at, and where she was heckled by some drunken arseholes, thinly disguised a Nick Harper fans. Anyway...), and asked to play with her (!) She accepted, and with virtually no rehearsal, they played quite brilliantly, one on violin and one on double bass. The violinist's playing was particularly tasty. And Tamara's new songs are extraordinary, covering subjects like Oswald Moseley (infamous English fascist), faceless housing projects, Andy Kaufman, and so on. Her song about the ill-fated attempt on Everest which was later documented in the book Into Thin Air, is spellbinding. If any of you get a chance to see this unique performer play live, I can only urge you to JUST DO IT! Check out her website, which is www.tamarawilliamson.com That's all folks, Azeem in London
