Hospitality – Sebright Arms, London 26/05/14

27 May 2014, 16:07 | Written by Russell Warfield

(Live)

(Hospitality)

On this year’s excellent Trouble, Hospitality flooded their sound with space. They let things meander through loose passages of improvisation, leaving chasms of room between the players. The result was an album with a gorgeous lightness of touch in the interplay between its instruments, and a shimmering sound full of subtle detail.

Tonight, Hospitality play things a little differently. They retain the core strengths of the songs – and even most of the space – but they add a sense of muscle to their textures as well. It’s a winning balance between the sounds of their two albums.The fruits of this approach are immediately obvious, with opening song “Inauguration” coiling its tension across its first half, and undamming its power halfway. For a song which could have fallen prey to thinness of texture in the live setting, it’s an early indication that Hospitality don’t overemploy their penchant for restraint while on stage.

Some songs are given an even more radical overhaul in sound. On record, the opening track of their debut “Eighth Avenue” beams with sunny, vibrant strumming. Tonight, its backbone of syncopated stabs of marching synth notes renders the arrangement unrecognisable. But it works brilliantly. Moments like this prove that Hospitality aren’t just improvisers. They’re re-inventors. They take some of their compositions far beyond the boundaries of jamming. “Eighth Avenue” is utterly reconfigured.

The anchor which holds experiments like these together is the strength of the songs themselves. From the most lengthy and indulgent numbers to the most lightly sketched breezes, everything emerges as a stark, fully realised piece tonight. No matter how they skew the arrangements or let things run on, the robust frameworks of these songs, and Amber Papini’s tight melodies, give the performances a very solid base.

Inevitably, a little something is lost by shedding the wider instrumentation which adds colour to the studio recordings of many of these songs. The chorus of “Friends of Friends” sounds a shade drab without the call and response of its horn section, for instance. But largely, this is another thing which doesn’t really matter thanks to the core strength of the material.

Put simply, these are excellent songs; a yearning blend of the anxiety and excitement of life in your early twenties, moving from education to employment; finding love and ignoring debt. Put alongside the breezy delivery of Papini’s vocal and the natural interplay between the trio, tonight’s excellent synthesis of two quite different records creates a remarkably assured set for a band as young – and changeable – as Hospitality.