Recording: Loom

Artist: Loom

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Hugh's Room, January 9, 2020.

Loom - unknown

With fewer and fewer venues to put on shows, resourceful promoters are trying out some new things, such as this interesting experiment, bringing together two different crowds for a sit-down night. Hugh's Room generally serves adjacent scenes to this night's performers, so this was also a chance to bring a different audience to a good listening room. The dinner-and-show model the venue operates under might sit awkwardly with the demographics at hand, but it was undoubtedly enjoyable to have a chance to appreciate the room's sonic qualities.

On stage, meanwhile, were two performers united in their soft power approach to music-making, harnessing some mysterious moon energy in mainly balladic terrain. Brooke Manning has been on many of our minds lately, as we were figuring where to slot her Epyllion album into our end-of-decade best-of lists, so it's exciting to look in on slow emergence of the next phase — a setlist that doesn't rely on those songs but instead on new tunes equally filled with the intense vulnerability of such deep feeling and empathy. Joined by vocalist Kyla Charter and guitarist Lana Leprich (wringing a full string section from her e-bow), Manning lit a single candle on stage and let that fragile light glow.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!