Gig review: Papa M at King Tut’s, Glasgow

DAVID Pajo has been much in demand since inventing what one might nebulously call “post-rock” in the 1990s as a member of cult band Slint.

Papa M

King Tut’s, Glasgow

***

But in addition to appearing as guitar-for-hire with the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and Tortoise, Pajo has continued to plough his own furrow, using a variety of aliases – Papa M being the one he settles on most often.

There was rapt appreciation for his delicately textured playing at this show, which gently generated a relaxing ambience at the end of a hot day. This was mood music – for those who were in the mood.

Pajo bookended his set with lengthy instrumental passages on which he was accompanied by a bass player. The pair traded melody lines on the opening tranquil suite, a mesmeric new age pastoral which ambled along with a wisps of vocalisation and finely deployed feedback and effects. In contrast, the more strident closing duet was short on melody and colour, favouring a ringing, rising urgency which ebbed away to calmer waters.

The middle portion of the set was given over to his winsome solo minstrelsy, the tremulous indie blues of High Lonesome Moan, supplemented by some mellow, plangent plucking from his chum, being the most pleasing and fully realised of these numbers.

Pajo’s tone is thin and quavery, rendering the forceful sentiment that “I aint no goddam son of a bitch” as a bit of a lo-fi whine. A lullaby reverie was monotonous and self-involved, but at least he showed some awareness of his surroundings by altering a lyric to namecheck the venue – a rare glimpse of humour in a somewhat navel-gazing hour.

FIONA SHEPHERD