LEICESTER, PHOENIX ARTS CENTRE
Acoustic siren Nina Nastasia playing in an arts cinema in Leicester with Peruvian throat-singers, and Jim White of Dirty Three on drums, couldn’t possibly make you feel more like a middle-aged student. That many beards and that many pairs of glasses cannot be healthy for an impressionable young man such as myself to be around. So, it was perhaps lucky that I missed most of the first set Nina Nastasia played, although judging from the shimmering beauty, the effortlessness of Nina Nastasia’s voice and the gentle guitar playing I could hear as I had to wait for the venue staff to allow me in, I wasn’t that lucky. However, an important lesson was learned: when a venue publishes a time on the tickets, it’s best to get there for that time.
The show itself was split into two sets, for the first set Nina Nastasia was accompanied by drums, viola, and accordion, and the second set saw this line-up augmented by Peruvian throat-singers wielding odd instruments that looked like shoe boxes with brooms stuck in.
Nina Nastasia’s not-quite-folk, not-quite-country songs of childhood love and loss were frequently captivating and she has assembled a backing band that never got in the way of her performance, never distracted your attention, only built the music up where it needed building and were otherwise happy to hug their instruments and listen. Even though Nina Nastasia seemed nervous there were no surprises in the performance, it was mothering, comfortable and safe, but in a very good way.
The introduction of world musicians did grate at times, in fact you were never entirely convinced they weren’t having a bet to see who could introduce the most stupid sounding noises into Nina Nastasia’s most gorgeous songs. However, that was a small criticism of an otherwise excellent performance, certainly there were times were the extra musicians added darkness to beauty.
Review by Robert Cluey