Gig review: Sparrow and the Workshop

Published on Thursday 8 October 2009 19:06

SPARROW & THE WORKSHOP **** CABARET VOLTAIRE, EDINBURGH

HOW can you not love a band who have a song which opens with a sweet-voiced American girl singing the words "I will break you" with tremulous matter-of-factness? Although they're best bracketed as alt-country, there's much more to the Glasgow-based trio Sparrow and the Workshop. They have a healthy, inventive irreverence for what has gone before, and in singer Jill O'Sullivan they have a focal point who mixes the tenderness and whipcrack bullishness of Janis Joplin.

None of this comes out anywhere other than the songs, however. All three band members appear at best shy, and maybe even a little awkward, talking in public: O'Sullivan expressed almost whispered annoyance at the rude, loud-voiced types holding some kind of dance party in the bar, and all three later discussed a ten-pin bowling showdown they were planning to enjoy with support act Kill It Kid the next day. All of which could be described as twee, were it not for the fact that that word sums up a whole different genre.

This was something of a homecoming event for drummer Gregor Donaldson (from Edinburgh, now lives in Glasgow) – so much so that bassist Nick Packer (born in Wales, raised in London, wearing a slightly incongruous Thin Lizzy T-shirt) and O'Sullivan (born in Belfast, raised in Chicago) had to help him through the experience of playing in front of his parents.

For all their self-consciously dopey shyness while they talk, the Sparrows' playing style is individual and distinctive, and their songs are performed with skill and focus. With Packer's bass high in the mix, O'Sullivan's guitar trickles beautifully and there's a certain loose funk to Donaldson's drumming, which also includes the percussive device of hitting a sheet of metal with his sticks.

A beautiful sadness invades tracks such as Devil Song, You Got It All and Into the Wild, and O'Sullivan is not reminiscent only of Joplin, but of other, more contemporary female voices like Cat Power and Feist. Showing a remarkable level of unaffectedness, she strode off into the modest but eager crowd at the end to consult with the sound man; yet this band are already at the level of ability where they could afford to start forging a sense of mystique.