The Staves Provide Warmth On A Cold Night In Edinburgh
Published
It’s chilly in Edinburgh in late winter, and dark. I take a seat on one of the Queen’s Hall’s pious old wooden benches. It’s a beautiful blue room that makes me think of the pastel-powered nostalgia of a Wes Anderson film.
The Staves
I have to give a mention to the opening act, Flo Morrissey. She walks on to the stage all ethereal, with floaty fabrics and distant eyes. Her voice is high and sullen, with that folk-y warble that sounds like it should be emanating from an old 50's radio (fellow folk warbler and label-mate Devendra Banhart is a noted influence). Lana Del Ray meets Joan Baez.
The Staves sisters arrive to middle aged rapture and get straight in to their set, comprised almost entirely of songs from their yet-to-be-released album . Within half a minute of the opener the audience’s collective jaw slackened and I’m sure I saw a few people drool. Their trademark liquid harmonies pour beautifully across the room. It’s not an over-exaggeration to say that.
It’s not an over-exaggeration either to say that when their voices combine, it’ll trap you in a honey-covered daze. But there’s a Bon Iver influenced country-pop-kick to the new songs that takes them away from the territory of sickly sweet.
They played a couple of crowd favourites in ‘Mexico’ and ‘Facing West’, but the audience was delighted with all offerings. The encore saw the girls sharing a microphone on ‘Wisely and Slowly’, embracing the melding of their familial voices. There seems to be some sort of physical reverberation that hits you when you hear the sound in person that is unique and (don’t quote me on the science) probably comes from somewhere in their shared DNA.
As I said, it’s chilly in Edinburgh in late winter, but these girls warmed me right up.
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click here. Words by Josiah Whitworth
