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PRESS RELEASE - Live at Electroacoustic Club - Volume Two

PRESS RELEASE - The Electroacoustic Club / 'Live at the Electroacoustic Club - Volume One

DAVE ARCARI Reviewed on Blues In London

'Eighteen months on, it's an unbelievable treat to see her (Polly Paulusma) back, playing solo in the kind of small, cold, candle-lit acoustic club that she started out in. It's a conspicuously low-profile gig, showcasing all new material, but there is standing room only at the back and you get the sense that quite a few people have been turned away. The basement of the Slaughtered Lamb has an understated cool, far removed from the clatter of the city clientele rattling their jewellery upstairs. Down below it's a black brick-walled affair with an eclectic assortment of bohemian seating (when was the last time you saw a chaise longue at a gig?) It reminds me of the River Bar on Tower Bridge before they tarted it up and took its soul.'

Richard Barnard's review of POLLY PAULUSMA on the Virtually Acoustic Club site JAN 2006
Read the whole review of Polly's Electroacoustic Club gig here

'It's 8.30pm and Clerkwenwell's immaculately stubbly architects scrutinise the multiple beer taps on the Slaughtered Lamb's polished bar. After a bellyfull of Bombadier and Erdinger, the need for relief takes one down 12 steps to a wide corridor and past a pair of black doors, with tiny windows. Through these leaks the sound of guitars, electric piano and some heavenly voice distracting your attention so that you nearly trip over the dishevelled character crouching attentively over his guitar and tuner. Curiosity takes over and as you peer through the glass into the stylish, lamp-lit room, a crowd appears down the stairs and someone asks you if this is the electroacoustic club. The door opens, you slide in and you might just have discovered one of the best kept secrets on London's live music circuit. Running Jump Records hosts the electroacoustic club here every Thursday and they make the most of a wonderfully intimate and atmospheric basement bar with unique acoustics, to put on an all-encompassing night of singer-songwriter-guitarists, laptops, synths, poets, percussionists and rappers; some from just up the road, others from the other side of the world. The crowd, strewn around the room in retro loungers and chaise-longues, comprises suits, students, poseurs, musos, regular performers and those, like you, who stumbled in by accident. The label has just released the CD album 'live at the electroacoustic club volume one,' recorded here over five nights in March of this year. Tonight, Jack Penate, one of the 17 acts featured, breezes through a high-octane set of quirky, soul-soaked rock, teasing licks from his Stratocaster and shuffling his feet at 180 bpm in the process. The following week chanteuse, Kelly Waters' electrifying soul-folk voice reverberates around the room, before folk-noir combo, Mandala boot up the Mac for some darkly cinematic epics. It's another quiet riot of a night at the electroacoustic club.'

THE BIG ISSUE, OCTOBER 2005

'Walking downstairs into the underground basement of the Slaughtered Lamb in a back street somewhere in the bowels of Farringdon, into a large and blackened smoke-filled room, littered with scruffy armchairs and wicker sofas, I gleefully thought to myself “Ooooh it’s a proper folk club!” Lovely lovely. In this intimate and warm setting, STEVE MAYONE treated us to a heartfelt, sometimes gritty, sometimes moving, set of downright dirty Americana tracks and touching ballads. One of the true values of a musician is whether they can translate their recorded songs into the striped-down acoustic arena. Needless to say, Steve Mayone can. Listen to his albums (“Bedroom Rockstar” comes highly recommended) and the likes of Brendon Benson, Tragically Hip and Ryan Adams spring to mind. However, hearing just the man and his guitar is a different story altogether (although disappointingly there was no banjo in this set – as he really is a finger-pickin' good player). The stand out tracks he performed included “Deeper in the Well”, a little slice of perfectly crafted bluegrass melancholy, reminiscent of Union Station perhaps. “She Runs Deep” was stunning, in fact the whole gig was. Warm and engaging, his music really hit a nerve, like hymns to the red-wine soaked state of mind I was in that evening. Oh yes, a nice bit of truly heartfelt Americana was enough to get my whimsical sense of poetry going. All he needed was lyrical references to forlorn bridesmaids and the Good Lord Jesus and I would have been weeping in the aisle. Funnily enough, the room was packed full of trendy hair-cutted indie kids who were a bit po-faced to start with, and by the end they was some real toe-tapping going on along with the rest of ‘em. The ignorant buggers were chatting rather too loudly to start with (which is annoyingly often the case at acoustic music nights), but a Mexican Wave of shushness soon sorted that out – the Mary Poppins spoon-full-of-sugar method (i.e. make it fun). So all in all, Steve Mayone, he’s really rather good. If he’s ever in your neighbourhood go check him out. At the very least, get yourself a copy of ‘Bedroom Rockstar’. You won’t be disappointed.

Sian Jones review of STEVE MAYONE on WHISPERIN & HOLLERIN

'August may be a notoriously dull month for music in the capital but this gives us a chance to shed some light on some unsung heroes of the London scene. While it's true that the outlets for live music have seriously diminished over the past few years, Clerkenwell is lucky to have several venues, which regularly showcase up-and-coming talent, including our focus for this month, the electroacoustic club. This friendly event which takes place every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Slaughtered Lamb has done a great job of presenting a satisfyingly diverse selection of artists. They pride themselves on an intimate and supportive atmosphere with superb sound. As the name suggests, the emphasis is on acoustic and electronic music but other than that that, there's a healthy catholic attitude to who's likely to appear. Recent artists have included James Morisson and Paolo Nutini, both currently with major label contracts an darousing plenty of press interest. August highlights include Candythief, the latest addition to Fife's celebrated Fence Collective and Leo Abrahams, guitar experimentalist who's just returned from touring with Roxy Music. If you fancy a night out that's a good anitdote to the faceless DJ bar, the electroacoustic club is a satisfying option and you might just be witnessing the future of rock'n'roll!'

Jeremy Brill, Sample Clerkenwell