Music review: Song, by Toad Christmas party

Published on 17/12/2010 20:15

SONG, BY TOAD CHRISTMAS PARTY QUEEN ChARLOTTE ROOMS, EDINBURGH *****

A PARACHUTING Santa hung above the upstairs stage in these grand old Leith function rooms, coats and guitar cases were piled next to the main stage and there was a real end-of-term concert feel about this show. A beginning too: 2010 was surely the last year of Edinburgh blog-come-record label Song, By Toad's apprenticeship, with the quality and originality on display here suggesting the step up to national recognition might come soon.

The six performers on the bill included the Savings & Loan, Jesus H Foxx and Yusuf Azak. The latter sings warm but melancholy solo blues tracks that make a focus of a growling voice which stretches vowels like fresh dough, a distinctive sound that rewards the time and attention required to get used to it. The three-piece Inspector Tapehead, meanwhile, are immediately entertaining, a playful collision of psychedelia, clubby sea shanties, analogue noise-making and a trembling, minimal version of Silent Night.

Then came Rob St John and band, presenting a mesmerising array of sonorous folk songs with a wailing violin floating like smog above them. "I'm going to call my next album Droney Mitchell," jokes St John, "it'll be full of Joni Mitchell songs played like this." And finally, after brief thanks from label founder Matthew Young, Meursault: the band at the forefront of this new folk-rock resurgence in Edinburgh's scene, and surely one who are bound for larger stages in 2011, if singer Neil Pennycook's turbulent and dazzlingly committed performance is any indicator.