On Friday night I saw Sam Amidon and Valgeir Sigurðsson at St. Barnabas’ Church in Soho; unobtrusively nestled into the dirty back-streets – from one angle it is disguised as a town house – it provided a beautiful and interesting setting for the music.

 

Sam Amidon was the big draw for me, and he rendered beautifully his reworked traditional American folk songs. He was accompanied by four other musicians, including Valgeir on bass, the others sharing duties on bassoon, cello, violin, accordion and banjo. They expertly played the sensitive arrangements written by Nico Muhly, which really added an extra dimension to the set, and reaffirmed my reverence for the genius young composer (New album Mothertongue is released on Tuesday). Shame he wasn’t there.The excellent new-folky David Thomas Broughton, another friend of Sam’s, sang on a couple of songs, at the same time performing unfathomable actions to accompany his words. ’Twas bloody great.

 

Valgeir was good too, although I hadn’t really heard the music beforehand, so I didn’t find his songs as affecting as Sam’s. I’ll give them a further listen though. My friend said that he felt the music – elaborately conceived, electronically inflected instrumentals mostly from the album Ekvílibríum – was better suited to the candle-lit chapel than Mr. Amidon’s.

           

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that music in churches is good, better in fact than music anywhere else. I recommend this gig in St. Pancras’ Parish Church, (put on by the cool people at Miles of Smiles) at which the aforementioned Mr. Broughton plays… I will certainly be in attendance, and I’m looking forward to some more ‘liturgical dancing’…