Hundred Waters – Oslo, London 15/10/14

22 October 2014, 10:00 | Written by Russell Warfield

(Live)

(Hundred Waters)

A lot is made of Hundred Waters’ ability to smelt together electronics and live arrangements with a subtle flair. Journalists find it difficult to pin their stripes to one descriptor above the other. It’s partly this calling card which accounts for the success of The Moon Rang Like A Bell this year and, tonight, the contrasts are even more pronounced when translated to a live performance. The sheer volume and robustness of the deep bass cuts smash up against the delicate pianos on songs like “X-Talk” even more so than on record. The dissonant, rising synth lines bash against Nicole Miglis’ demure vocals on “Rafters” with more drama and colour. It’s a great airing of already brilliant songs.

Live, Miglis’ voice is colder and richer than you might expect. It’s by far and away the starkest organic contrast to the electronic bedrocks of the songs, cutting across the mix with a sharp edge to its softness. The definition and preciseness of her vocal is striking, especially in consideration of how barely-there it often seems to be. It feels like she spends half her time just breathing into the microphone, let alone whispering. But her presence is an anchored rock at the centre of the arrangements, no matter how densely layered the electronics get, or how stripped back and atmospheric.

Her vocals really come into their own on a capella album opener “Show Me Love”. On record, her voice is unaccompanied, but layered and treated. Tonight, her voice is necessarily solo, but accompanied by a deep, rolling piano. It’s an arrangement which they wear handsomely, and makes the case for Hundred Waters beginning to consider taking the occasional opportunity to move away from their expert blend of the live and the electronic, and letting themselves commit to one or the other for a few minutes at a time. Tonight’s performance of the pulsating “Animal” is a persuading example of how effective they can be when they let that pendulum swing the other way.

The band themselves are a difficult thing to judge. With earpieces and electronics, it’s hard to tell where the lines between performance and blueprints begin and end. With the end product so excellently executed, it’s nothing much to trouble yourself with, but for listeners concerned with firmly latching onto the human in an evening of live music, this could have presented a stumbling block tonight. One person’s chilly atmospherics could have been an icy lifelessness to another. But for those of us willing to embrace a limited sense of detachment from a suitably absorbing performance, tonight’s set was a brilliant demonstration of Hundred Waters’ trademark electronics and organics, splashing more colours across the contrasts than on their already wonderful LP.