Shearwater

There is something unusually appealing about the combination of banjo and cello. A certain resonance between quickly twanging strings and drawn-out, deep-bowed notes which carves streams through my tired mind and allows a gentle flow of moods and feelings to pass right through. The banjo, carefully plucked, keeps playing these songs - instantly familiar yet, as hard as one tries, never memorable. It's as if it's plugged into a source of age-old melody that mysteriously can never be tapped into by my limited mind. The cello continues, weaving patterns of bassline through a dense forest of plucked sound. A combination of timbres both unusual and natural sounding - that is natural in the organic, non-manufactured and florid sense.

Shearwater are, you see, one of these bands that seem to create interest without any gimmick, just musicianship and a trickling source of melody that, throughout the gig tonight, does not make a start in drying up. When vocalist, Jonathan Meiburg (also of Okkervil River) first starts to sing, there is no overt reaction from a quietly concentrative crowd. For Meiburg does not leap in with his voice - slowly his vocal cords vibrate further and further before opening up into a lupine howl that causes a sudden alertness amongst audience members. His is a voice that seems, even in a carpeted room such as this, to be carrying across the wind - perhaps arriving from two-hundred metres inside a desert, whistling through long grass and diving across the surface of ponds and pools. A voice that toys with melody like the morning skylark, varying tones to convey more than mere words ever could. In enjoying the wash of sound, picking out lyrics becomes quite unimportant.

As the set rolls on, musicians move around - piano, guitar, drums showcase various qualities. The piano is sparse: sets of chords are played that turn in directions slightly unexpectedly, as if blown aside by a sudden gust. The guitar is able to swap between moments of storm-heavy noise and dewy, dusty layers as and when required. Shearwater play with a level of intuition, a sense of connectivity is unusually apparent. In fact, Meiburg and cellist Kim Burke are an ex-husband and wife - their ability to communicate above a verbal level shows through.

As gorgeously organic as tonight is, and how engaging in a purely aural capacity the performance is, very little is left to savour afterwards. The echoes of traditional folk and musical purity do not ring in my mind for long - as fast as they arrived, they leave without permission on the intangible winds. Barren of music, my head aches to remember the melodies that Shearwater have taken away with them.