Gig review: Rozi Plain, Edinburgh
Rozi Plain - Summerhall, Edinburgh
* * * *
Playing with local favourites Eagleowl and Supermoon (the solo project of Neil Pennycook, formerly of Meursault) in support, this was a show well-suited to the intimate but atmospheric confines of Summerhall’s Dissection Room bar, recently co-opted as an eminently suitable space for live music. Plain’s hour-long set was an exercise in affecting restraint, with the three players alongside her – including Fifer Gerard Black, formerly of sublime Glasgow indie group Findo Gask – sometimes reduced to redundancy, such was the delicacy of her playing and arrangements.
Plain’s songs are founded on a breathy, folksy voice which bears a hint of Sandy Denny and a backing of softly-picked guitar and lightly-hit drums which is at once gossamer-light and tightly-controlled. Tracks like Humans and Five Beans breezed past in a dreamy haze, but were anything but insubstantial, while her finest compositions were the ones which took this unhurried aesthetic and married it with a sharp pop edge. Friend City, for example, shuffled to a slowed-down afro beat groove which reminded of Talking Heads, while Jogalong floated on a lovely, Krautrock-echoing synth, both irresistible but anything but try-hard.
Seen on 1 May