Aidan O'Rourke, Spiegeltent, George Square

A gig of two contrasting sets.

Support came from Sarah Hayes, best known as a member of Admiral Fallow, here performing solo, just voice and keyboard.  While her playing is beautifully fluid, the arrangements were kept simply to allow the vocals to shine through.  Hayes has a charming warmth to her voice, and great clarity of expression.  Important when the lyrics are so crucial to the performance.  A mix of traditional ballads and contemporary songs, the emphasis was on story telling and there were a few dark tales in the set.

I liked Sarah's introductions to each song, providing context for the stories and reasons why her own interest had been sparked.  It's a nice way to create an intimacy with her audience and adds to the richness of the individual pieces.

Aidan O'Rourke, famed as a member of the magnificent trio Lau, builds his pictures using sounds, not words.  The opening number was a solo piece, just him, fiddle and sampling box.  Building up a carefully cadenced stack from his strings he proceeded to create an atmospheric acoustic wall that echoed and faded and grew around us.

Which set the tone for the rest of the evening.  Joined on stage by the excellent Graeme Stephen on guitar and John Blease on drums, together they played some very recent O'Rourke compositions, plus one which he'd had commissioned for last year's Commonwealth Games.  The latter was probably the only point in the set that could be said to have anything conventionally recognisable as melody and rhythm.

The newer numbers are all about creating soundscapes, building up a density of noises over which sudden riffs appear, surprising directions are taken, unpredictable beats occur.  There were times when each member of the trio appeared to be working to a different score, only for them to come back together and the individual departures made sense again.  It's about as far removed from pop music as you could imagine and all the better for it.

In counterpoint to the intensity of the music, O'Rourke's gentle demeanor introduced something of his thinking when he'd been composing, and provided a decently amusing tale from his recent experiences.  Just an ordinary guy, but a remarkable music creator.