Reviews

kuwarto

Kuwato began their performance last night to an extremely minimal audience but nonetheless played some enjoyable music. They are a four piece consisting of three males and an oriental frontwoman who also played acoustic. She was a very chatty young lady dressed in black with lots of energy and a very powerful voice akin to classic black soul singers with an edge. Her accent was a mixture of American and English and she sat on a stool center stage throughout while the other band members stood. They had an extremely talented bass player who I felt really led the group throughout as well as an equally talented bongo player. The music was a mixture of soulful acoustic tracks and chilled funky grooves. At times they even had a classic New Orleans jazz vibe about them using a lot of sudden tempo changes and musical interludes. They began with the somewhat dark song 'Things To Come' led by a groovy bass line. The frontwoman sang "I'm afraid of things to come, I worry about things t! o come, I'm gonna disappear". A sexy groove followed with a slower track and then another funky one with some fast and very powerful vocals. The bassist provided some backing vocals and another great bassline before the tempo changed and went into an instrumental middle with a mini bongo solo. The band were extremely tight throughout and I felt the tempo changes really added some appealing dynamics to the songs. The song 'I'm Just Here' was fourth followed by a song with a similiar rhythm and the lyrics "I'm running out of reasons, forever loosing faith, I'm running out of seasons, forever being away." Three more tracks were played in the first set. The first was 'Give Me A Reason' with a gently picked acoustic beginning and the words "Make me sigh, make me tremble, make me cry, make me grumble". The second featured a cool stop/start part in the song in which the frontwoman would sing "All I want is to see you undress". They finished the set with a mellow song called 'Make ! Believe' and the words "Somebody said to love somebody when their beautiful is easy".

The same relaxed vibe continued into the second set. They began with 'I Wanna Keep You' followed by the song 'Tomorrow Or The Next Day' introduced as sounding "kind of like a Bond song" and with a slow verse and fast middle it kind of did! 'Same Old Thing' followed and then a new song with some more great bass and bongo playing. The remaining six songs that they played rolled into each other really nicely and included 'Sincerely Uncertain', a very chilled one where the frontwoman sang "I'm only in a daydream" and a song called 'Turn Me Down' with the words "I'm going crazy, I love it when your faithful" which they finished with. A shame that there wasn't a bigger crowd tonight but the band successful created a very relaxed atmosphere that made those who were there want to stay till the end. Their next gig is in Bristol!

Ed Hutchinson