I nearly forgot to mention that I saw the Mercury Music Prize-nominated (I know, like that means anything..doesn’t even the titular Mercury relate to a now-defunct telecoms company sponsor?) at the National Portrait Gallery the other night.  I do enjoy seeing music in less-than-usual settings, hence I was more interested in checking out the NPG as a venue than seeing the band themselves.

I was a little disappointed with the space.  The concert took place in a sterile white conduit, a transient place filled with a constant stream of people shuffling through between other parts of the gallery (although the bemused faces passing up the sleek escalator did amuse me).  It was a bit busy, which I suppose could have been expected what with Basquiat Strings being the country’s designated flag-bearers for all music that isn’t indie rock, but this meant I was sitting on the floor, which was cold and hard.  An hour of that probably didn’t contribute to my appreciation of the venue.

Having said all that, I enjoyed the group more than I expected, particularly given that the big-haired clumsily-booked drummer Seb Rochford had managed to get his diary in a knot and wasn’t present.  Although they were coming from a more staid classical tradition, with only the (rather good, actually) substitute drummer allowed to veer from sheet music, I did appreciate their arrangements of some familiar jazz tracks.  In particular, their reading of the one-day-gone Joe Zawinul’s “In A Silent Way” had an obvious poignancy.