Tonight’s Kino event with Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou is actually a three-parter: not only a full set from St Leonards’ own nationally-acclaimed indie-folk duo playing on home turf as well as support from another talented local singer-songwriter, Hayley Savage, but also a screening of Trevor Moss’s own film ‘Live In Store’ that documents the duo’s nationwide tour of in-store appearances at independent record shops in support of their album Fair Lady London at the end of last year.
We start with the latter. Moss explains that as a record of the tour the film is inspired by the rough and ready footage of childhood celebrations on his parents’ Super 8 film camera. Shot in black and white the effect is like moody atmospheric arthouse cinema meets shaky pre-VHS, pre-digital family film-show. As a film genre Moss pulls it off brilliantly. And as their couple’s young toddler son also accompanies them on many of their travels the style seems somehow wholly appropriate. Motorways, record stores, Travel Lodges, local radio studios and repeat and repeat – the film captures the humdrum rhythm and repetitiveness of days spent touring but interspersed with the magic that is live performance as they play their songs to appreciative punters between the record and CD racks. As Moss states in the closing credits lets hope such places continue to remain a feature of everyday life rather than a strange curiosity from the past.
Hayley Savage’s brand of folky Americana works for me, for sure. A heartfelt singer songwriter, a lovely warm sound from her semi acoustic guitar that lends itself perfectly to the material and superb backing from her band (Ruby Colley, Lizzie Raffiti and Victoria Howarth) I’d certainly be keen to catch these again.
After seeing Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou ply their wares and play their songs in one record store after another in the earlier film, it’s perhaps a bit of a novelty seeing those songs being performed live on a proper stage in the altogether grander surroundings of the Kino Teatre’s domed auditorium. The duo’s performance loses none of its intimacy though – either with one another or with us the audience. There’s plenty of songs from the recent album Fair Lady London, including beautiful renditions of ‘We Should’ve Gone Dancing’, ‘Everything You Need’ and ‘I Could Break You’ together with a smattering of older material. The voices, the guitars, the lyrics, the vintage keyboards – pretty much every component of Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou act as a duo blends to perfection.
http://www.trevormossandhannahlou.com/
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