Jagaara - Warrior Sisters
There’s an anticipation in the air at this tiny London venue, completely sold out and rammed to the exits for a hotly watched young band called Jagaara. Named after a Manga female warrior character, they are a trio of gorgeous sisters that grew up in Finchley, so this is a sort of homecoming gig being just less than 10 miles away.
For the past couple of years Jagaara have been honing their sound, building a fanbase, supporting the likes of Jack Garratt, and playing the odd festival slot at Bestival and Latitude - to name two.
The audience is a mixture of youthful hipster Shoreditch set and a few older blokes (that probably includes me) and one appeared to be smuggling cheese to another audience member? Later found out it was a legendary figure of London concert venues – Mr Gigslut ! That brie must have been slightly oozing after a few minutes in the sweaty atmosphere of the Sebright Arms though.
Jane (lead vocals/guitar), Cat (Keyboards) and Ruth (Guitars) take to the stage at 9:30pm following a quite nervous performance from young singer/songwriter support act Nilufer Yanya. The Edmonson sisters were certainly not nervous, looking very assured all 3 dressed mostly in black with Jane sporting a sparkly long jacket. They ease into the opening number and its quite clear that they are out to impress, its quite faultless and Jane’s haunting soulful vocals combine beautifully with her sister’s harmonies.
Their sound could be described as part electronic soundscapes, mixed with a bit of soul/folk, and even rock when Ruth starts smoking the BC Rich guitar licks, its hard not to say the words ‘British Haim’ when you consider their style and pedigree, but there is more of a dark and spacial feel to this trio of ladies than their US comparators.
‘Faultlines’ a highlight of the show for me, starts like a London Grammar sparse punchy synth laden track, building relentlessly to almost anthemic levels at the end. Truly beautifully performed, without fault live, and the heads are bobbing with a couple of the audience singing the words back.
Jane’s deep vocals appear to be assisted by a synth backing echo which doesn’t harm the session, but sadly we have the dreaded technical hitch of a laptop failure, and are left staring at the stage for 5 mins whilst the machines get ‘fixed’. A real shame that parts of their sound need the added technology, as up to that point the show was nicely evolving, and it never quite had the chance to recover with only 2 numbers left on the setlist.
So it felt like a short set, something like 7 songs and all finished in around 40 minutes, including the hitch - not enough time for Mr Slutz cheese to go off. Most of the audience feeling a bit short changed as they file out of the building, but more importantly, they all saw and heard enough to know that this is a band to watch out for this year.
Sister trios appear to be a thing now, with a revitalised Corrs, Haim and The Staves leading the way, but Jagaara could, with the right break in the industry, be up there too, they have a professional edge and with songs like Faultlines/Heartbeat there is no reason why this can’t happen in 2016.
COMMENTS
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Great review as usual
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Need to catch these girls again, I just think they have more to show.
