The Long Lost Indie Art Of Indie

Neil Jones on Hush the Many and Halflight at Cardiff Barfly

The walk down the winding steps of Cardiff Barfly is accompanied by the same thoughts, the same tinges of excitement as always, remnants from a slightly more innocent age where I’d come to the city all wide eyed to see a band that I’d adored from the depths of my little village back home. Whenever I walk down these steps I remember seeing Ooberman here. Laura Cantrell, too. Those gigs seemed miraculous to me at the time, but I'm not sure many people who are the age that I was then get to feel the same way here now. It's a terrible shame that Sponsored Indie has got such a grip on this place, but with a bittersweet song in my heart I venture inside for another nostalgia-tinged visit.

There’s a rock 'n' roll covers band playing so the seats at the back of the venue look like a safe place to hide for a while, until their meaningless, soulless sounds fade into the annuls of pre-history and Halflight takes to the stage. I’d seen Halflight before, been quite impressed, though not totally taken by their songs, but tonight it’s a stripped down set, singer/guitarist Sarah Howells joined only by one co-player, and it’s immediately beguiling.

Howells has sweet songs the best of which ache with a Sundays-ish romance, and when she lets her voice float effortlessly and unambitiously through them they’re like heavenly little dreams. I’m also reminded at times during her set of the more melancholy moments of Howling Bells. Maybe it's her pure bluesy, melancholy soul. It gets a little orthodox and traditional at times for sure, as it does with the Bells, but when these grand moments happen Halflight burn bright and glorious.

Now a bass, an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar shimmer like the opening of new worlds, and tonight’s headliners Hush the Many are off with a glittering bang. In this most fashionable of sponsored fashionable indie haunts it’s apt to mention that frontman Nima looks like he’s been born into his immaculate jacket and colourful T-shirt, and indeed this is a band that glossy magazines might invent if they were clever enough, an intensely passionate concoction of all the cool notions in the book, shot to pieces by a startling musical naturalism.

Hush the Many produce an ebbing, pulsing, poetically-poised sound, perched in that gorgeous fissure between noise-folk and ethereal pop, defying all the usual journalistic hybrids that I can’t help conjure in my brain between the times my breath is being taken. The best of these hybrids is possibly Mogwai mixed with Boards of Canada, but this isn't really accurate, it's just an idea that passes through, and I don't know enough about either of those bands. There’s stark songs here and blazing orchestral ones there, and the former are pure, intricate fascinations, revolving now around Nima’s impassioned vocals, again around Jonathan White’s electric guitar, and again around Steph Patten’s cello, which beautifully fills out the spaces in songs as well as soaring so subtly when it has to.

‘The Knife’ takes the sound to new sultry and dramatic heights, knowingly but not off-puttingly dramatic noise-poetry so gorgeous it makes time stand still. Bassist Alexandra Brown joins Nima for this on vocals that float like mystical dreams, before the set comes to a close in a blaze of visceral, spaciously-aware noise. I'm struggling for definite comparisons and reference points here, so I'll just say that Hush the Many are the long lost indie art of Art and a million things more. Tonight they've shot me to pieces, and I can’t see how in years to come I won’t be recalling this one too while tumbling down those Barfly steps.

© 2008 Neil Jones

© Miwsig