Monday Night in a Record Shop with Beth Orton

 Music in shops should be a thing, a big thing. In my experience it is usually found in records shops and book shops (very few coffee shops for some reason).

Anyway, I digress. Monday night found me in Assai Records to see and hear the wonderful Beth Orton share some tracks from her new album 'Weather Alive'. The crowd file in packing themselves into the space after the scanning on tickets and the presentation of the appropriate vinyl or cd pre-ordered as part of the entry to this event. 

There is some gentle jockeying for better positions and folk behind me are probably saying 'got a tall bloke in front of me'. Then suddenly she's there in a faded denim jumpsuit beaming smile and curtain of fair hair. Beth is accompanied by a saxophone/flautist player for an intimate and affecting airing of four tracks from the new album. We hear 'Fractals', 'Friday Night', 'Forever Young' and 'Weather Alive' which is as good a snapshot of the new album as you can get. Beth plays keyboards, sings, whispers, speaks her way through these songs and the sax and flute are used to add colour and emphasis almost like another voice. These songs are impressionist paintings bursting through with colour and emotion creating moods and shades. The four songs done it's time for orderly queues, signing of appropriate merchandise and Monday night restaurant recommendations nearby.

I head out into the Edinburgh night effervescent with the music and the event. Music in record shops lets have more of that.  

Hot Air and AirBnBs

 I was mildly amused but not surprised when I read that Tory MSP Miles Briggs was calling for the licencing of short term lets to be paused. If anything epitomises the free market it is short term lets. Property owners are encouraged to maximise the profit they can make from the homes they own by exploiting the short term let market. In Edinburgh it has seen the private rental market hollowed out as property owning landlords move from long term rentals to workers, families, students, elderly and the unemployed to the short term let market. The knock-on effect is higher rents in what remains of the private rental sector, more pressure on the socially rented sector, council and housing association waiting lists, and a loss of community especially in shared stair tenements and modern flats. 

Miles Briggs MSP make the case that the businesses that run short term lets are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and now have the cost-of-living crisis to contend with. He argues that this new licencing scheme will add costs. 

Aside from effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the market is that really true? If these small businesses are renting out what are actually homes shouldn't the owners already be registered as landlords? If the property was previously a long-term private rental, shouldn't it be up to safety standards? Indeed, if the property was rented to a shared group of people previously shouldn't it already have a Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMO) licence? 

The new legislation to regulate and control Short Term Lets (STLs) is designed to make sure properties have standards akin to HMOs which have been regulated for nearly two decades. There is also the requirement to apply for 'change of use' permission under the planning system as the property is being taken out of use as a home to become a, no doubt, lovely 5-star TripAdvisor apartment for transient visitors. Property is a responsibility and not merely an investment to be maximised. Unfortunately for some housing is now unobtainable to rent or to buy in the overheated property market and the drive to short term lets has helped fuel that overheating. It is no surprise that Edinburgh is also looking to introduce rent controls (a common tool in other countries but an anathema to free marketeers).  

The legislation to regulate short term lets has been lobbied for by local politicians and local authorities like Edinburgh for too long while communities have suffered. The legislation has been passed and it is now time to put it into practice. Enough hot air.

The Weather Station + Circuit des Yeux - Summerhall, 31 August 2022

 This gig was like a double bill - two strong female performers taking their music to new areas and pushing the boundaries.

I was there to see headliner The Weather Station (aka Tamara Lindeman). I'd seen her play four years ago when her sound was decidedly guitar based indie. Since then she's been on a journey from the early folk stylings that when I first heard her duets with Daniel Romano put me in mind of Emmylou and Gram. Ever restless she has moved on through the companion albums 'Ignorance' and 'How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars' with their shimmering melodies and pop sheen. 

The last two years over which time these two albums were recorded and released have also seen her star shine with the albums being highlighted by reviewers and seen as among the most important of recent years. She seems at home with these songs and is certainly relaxed, inhabiting the songs with a casual intensity as she moves between instruments and paces the stage. She talked of dancing and wanting to write songs to dance to and a number of the songs have the kind of rhythms you can move to, even her quieter numbers have melodies you can slow dance to. I'm listening carefully and think that despite the exceptional quality of her songs and performance there remains a striving for something that is just beyond her grasp, yet. I expect the next music from The Weather Station to move the boundaries further forward and the next time I see her I feel she'll have reached a new peak of creativity further up the scale - I look forward to that. 

Circuit Des Yeux were a revelation to me. Sure I'd listened to her album '-io' but that did not prepare me for the cathedral of sound that Haley Fohr and her two supporting musicians drenched us with. A maelstrom of foreboding as she fills the stage with her presence seeming like a giant as she prowled the stage looming over the audience before descending to pace back and forth in front of the stage then darting into the audience, climbing back onto the stage and literally hanging off the walls. It was spectacular and the sound was huge invoking glimpses of late period Scott Walker, darkest Billy McKenzie and Diamanda Galas. She did take it down a notch for the last beautiful song and left us there contemplating what we'd just experienced.

So in summary an evening of music by two emerging women talents who are creating the music they want pushing at boundaries and what is expected of women performers, moving at their own pace. Different approaches, yes but both reaching for new sounds and tonal qualities and creating something wonderful in both cases. I've little time for nostalgia, who should when new music like this is available?

http://www.theweatherstation.net/

https://circuitdesyeux.com/