Review | Jane Weaver at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea: 'This is immersive, head-nodding stuff'
This is definitely the first gig I've been to which has featured a dedicated "Jodie Comer section."
But it's an obvious fit for Jane Weaver – both quirky yet talented performers who've carved out their own niche by not playing to type.
The first song in this two-sing interlude is the strident Mission Desire, which is used during the opening scene in Comer's recent film The End We Start From.
This is followed by the title track of her 2017 album Modern Kosmology, which appeared in instrumental form in a scene entitled 'Villanelle eats pasta' in black-humoured psychodrama Killing Eve - but "this is the real version with singing."
Weaver is your archetypal Radio 6 Music listener's dream – indeed they named her last album Flow one of their best of the 2021. In a career stretching back to the Britpop days she's been in an alt-rock indie band, been a folkie, and now as a long-standing solo artist her music is somewhat genre agnostic – it pulls in sounds from all over.
Sometimes it's got the driving rhythms of Krautrock, sometimes it's reminiscent of the left-field indie of Stereolab or the hypnotic grooves of shoegaze and dream-pop, other times it's something I can best describe electro-pastoral.
Even her hecklers are extraordinarily nice: "You're really accomplished!" someone shouts mid-set, much to Weaver's accepting bemusement.
There are squelchy synths and guitar attacks when her songs are at their most fervent – but Weaver's clear-cut voice always slices through the mix, even when heavily reverbed for the spacier songs.
This is immersive, head-nodding stuff.
The set draws heavily on the new release, Love in Constant Spectacle which is an album definitely worth listening to on the headphones.
But its songs take flight in the live arena. Weaver plays guitar for some of the set, adding an extra sonic level to the soundscape.
The effect can occasionally be soporific, as during LICS' final track, Family of The Sun, as it drifts pleasantly on a gentle groove. But that's just lulling us into a false sense of security before suddenly bursting into a techno coda.
This is space-rock, as in it's music exploring the far reaches of Weaver and her band's abilities, rather than the stoned sounds normally associated with that epithet.
Her music is a joy – dive on in and let it wash all around you.