Vetiver & Mi and L'au Thursday 31 august

u:mack

U:MACK
Present
Vetiver
+Very special guests
Mi and L'au
Thursday 31 august
Whelans of wexford street
Doors 8pm
Tickets EUR16 from Road, City Discs, Wav Box office 1890
2000 78 online at www.tickets.ie
Listen to Vetiver at www.myspace.com/vetiverse
Listen to Mi and L'au at www.younggodrecords.com

We're delighted to announce a very special double bill
of Vetiver and Mi and L'au in whelans on Thursday 31
august, the day before Electric Picnic, where vetiver
perform as part of Devendra Banhart's band


Vetiver
Under the imprint Vetiver, Andy Cabic has been writing
and performing songs in an acoustic manner for a few
years now, often accompanied on cello by Alissa
Anderson, and at times on guitar by Devendra Banhart.
It is quite common to see Jim Gaylord playing his
violin on stage with them as well, as Vetiver keeps
growing and sprouting up in unexpected ways.

Released two years after the band's eponymous debut
release, which stood out as one of 2004's finest
releases, new album To Find Me Gone is the second
album by the ever-evolving band. A lush, beautiful
album, it cements Andy's growing reputation as one of
the finest songwriters of his generation.

Since his last album, Andy has spent long stints on
the road, touring occasionally with Vetiver, and
regularly as a member of Devendra Banhart's band.
Written and recorded in free time during that period,
'To Find Me Gone' is a freer and more mature effort,
markedly shifting Vetiver's sound into a different
direction. Lyrically, it's very much a 'road' record,
about travel and distances, comings and goings, people
falling in and out of lives and wondering where the
time goes. Moving away from folk references and the
simpler minimalism of the first album, there is more
of a West Cost '70s feel evident on the new record.
With a focused depth and controlled studio-led
expansiveness, the arrangements are significantly
different, utilising greater instrumentation and a
broader range, including screaming electric guitar
solos, pedal steel, layered strings, and electronic
flourishes, alongside songs that wouldn't sound amiss
on the first album. Alongside Cabic, the players on
this album included mainstays Devendra, Alissa
Anderson, Otto Hauser (drums), and Kevin Barker
(guitar).

Mi and L'au

Mi and L'au met in Paris a few years back. Mi is
Finnish and was working as a model to make ends meet
and L'au (who's French) was working in the music
industry (soundtracks, I think). They fell deeply and
immediately in love, and after a short period of
moving from apartment to apartment in Paris, they gave
everything up and decided to move to the woods in
Finland, so they could be alone together in peace and
to spend their time discovering each other and their
music. They live in a small cabin in complete
isolation with the barest of essentials (except in the
brutal Finnish winter, when they move to Helsinki) and
they spend virtually all their time making music
together in solitude. They are pure and gentle souls
(Devendra's song, from oh me oh my "gentle soul" was
written for L'au - the two had met in Paris when
Devendra was wandering there, and L'au took him in,
and they also made music together). Their music is
bare and austere, made with simple instrumentation -
voice, acoustic guitars, and other very sparse
orchestrations. I wouldn't say it compares at all to
the current crop of neo hippy "weird folk" etc. It has
the naked quality of certain early Nico recordings, or
Chet Baker...soulful and elegant, without being
touchy-feely or confessional. Their music reminds me
of how one might imagine a winter Finnish landscape -
haunting and pure
www.umack.com

u:mack

excellent footage of vetiver song from a Banhart show at a festival in Las Vegas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfkTFD26pgg

john_craven

Devendra Banhart will be definetley be making a surprise guest appearance at the vetiver gig the night before electric picnic, thursday aug 31 in whelans! Vetiver are made up of members of his backing band, and he has decided to play with them as he'll be in ireland anyway for the electric picnic.
more details of the gig here: http://www.umack.com/vetiver310806.html

check out vetiver tracks here: www.myspace.com/vetiverse

John

Nice but not much of a surprise anymore!