This gig is quite unlike any other; it is much more than music. Here, both Nick Mulvey and Sandrayati grow the connection between music and environmental angst by creating a peaceful space to reflect, which feels somehow beyond time.
SANDRAYATI
Nick Mulvey’s support act was female singer-songwriter Sandrayati, who he met during a climate change convention a few years prior. Sandrayati walks onto stage holding in her hand a single stick of incense. Out of her pocket she pulls a small chunk of ginger, and wedges the unlit side of the incense stick into it. She hasn’t said a word, and some of the crowd have still not noticed her behind the expanding cloudy gauze. The smell of amber and patchouli gently floats through the room and fills it up – she is taking us home.
Blue and green lights lower on the stage: Earth aglow on her skin. Sandrayati begins by playing Petals to the Fear, a soft acoustic piece from her new album ‘Safe Ground’. By the end of the first verse the chattering buzz of the crowd has completely lulled; Sandrayati has us entranced. We hadn’t been sure what to expect of Mulvey’s support, but now we can’t decide whether or not to applaud, for fear of piercing this perfect silence. She whispers shyly into the microphone: “This is the quietest it has ever been for me in all the shows we’ve played…Thank you”. Her tone of voice is so completely familiar, and yet so distinctly unfamiliar all at once. She herself claims to be “from everywere”, and this notion of Earth-rooted-ness and connection is something which traces itself throughout the entire evening.
The next half an hour is filled with equally stunning lullabies for Sandrayati’s home and ancestry. There is a raw urgency to her lyrics, in contrast to their whispered, sweetly melodic performance. She even sings two songs in her native tongue, Indonesian. And in between each song she speaks directly to us, which feels remarkably intense and intimate. Besides Mulvey, I have never seen an artist who is so clearly devoted to their own music and its meaning. She wants us – needs us – to understand her and everything her work means and stands for.
NICK MULVEY
Everything about Mulvey’s performance is heightened by this venue. Glasgow’s St Luke’s is a disbanded church, now live music venue, but which still retains its former ecclesiastical skeleton: high arched stained-glass windows and a huge pipe organ at the back of the stage. The high ceilings mean the acoustics float and reverberate around us, and Mulvey’s echoing lyrics consume us all as warnings. For instance, Mulvey’s A Prayer of My Own takes on an entirely new dimension, and the way the laughter of Mulvey’s own children in the backing-track circles around us feels even more profound, almost chilling. This is prayer for a new generation and a call for action; Mulvey becomes a sort of new-age priest.
We are sat in the nosebleeds – the pews right at the back of the church – but there is something so incredible about observing this performance from a distance, from above, and yet feeling completely involved in all of it at once. I suppose intimate is the first word that comes to mind to explain this feeling. We become included in the narrative Mulvey is telling when he gets us to sing the backing vocals for ‘Unconditional’ midway through the set. The way we are chanting feels like an inspired return to our ancestry and it’s strangely therapeutic. There is a clarity of thought in Mulvey’s lyricism, but also a vacancy which leaves room for un-ending, unbound questioning. Reflecting on his song ‘Begin Again’ Mulvey explains that this is a “grief piece” above all else, but that grief “comes hand in hand with celebration”. So by acknowledging loss and accepting our grief over the natural catastrophe, Mulvey hopes our love for the Earth will flourish.
Another word that comes to mind to surmise this gig is grief, underscored by a distinct optimism. Mulvey cultivates in here a tiny space for us all to share in the same grief, and encourages us to express our fears with him here in this moment. Mulvey ends the set with a triple-encore, closing with ‘Mountain to Move’. Layered over the top of this acoustic treasure is a speech he has chosen by climate activist, Joanna Macy. Her heavy, Californian accent echoes through the Church and presses down upon us. Soon, Mulvey brings his own lyrics back in, and now we are all clapping along, chanting “wake up now” in unison. It feels so overwhelmingly cathartic. Mulvey is quite literally telling us to “wake up now”, and we are all agreeing as we sing, and call out, and beg – together, here, now.
Mulvey’s music live lets it be understood in a completely new way, which is closer to how he hoped his work to be understood. Everything comes together clearly, but as it all falls into place, it becomes clearer than ever before that it all falls apart.
Image courtesy of Eliza Light