Tuesday 24th October 2023
St. Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph, England
I advance up the south stone path in the dark of the autumn evening. I slow my pace to avoid passing an older couple on the cobbles just ahead, and enter the welcoming light of the church. But no, I am not, reader, finally seeking forgiveness for all my sins. Tonight, St. Lawrence’s Church, in the Staffordshire town of Biddulph, is host to a more secular spirit. Kassi Valazza has come from America to tour her harmonious brand of psychedelic folk and country, and tonight her melodies will grace this parish church.
I sit silently in the nave, among the gathering congregation, and take in the scene. The old stone church is grand and yet intimate, perfect for tonight’s music, and I wonder at how buildings like this are common across England, built in better days when art and architecture was exalted, and too often fallen into disrepair in our own times. Coats-of-arms adorn the walls and, through the grey arches which line the nave, stone plaques are mounted in the bays. I look up and see dark brown beams lattice the ceiling, set off by the stark white paint of the roof itself. Behind the area at the front of the church, where a stage has already been cleared and musical instruments set up, there is an oak lectern and a stone altar. Beyond this red-carpeted chancel area where tonight’s trinity of musicians will later play, the apse funnels light up towards the heavens, past carved stone angels and stained-glass windows which Cromwell’s men once tried to destroy. Kassi may have come from America, a land where country music thrives and St. Lawrence is a great river, but this modest English church has existed since America was young, and on a site where a church has existed in one form or another for a thousand years.
Tonight is a night for fine female vocalists, and not long after ‘In Dreams’ by Sierra Ferrell (who I saw live last year) fades from the speakers, our opening act, the appropriately-named St. Catherine’s Child, stands before the microphone. The stage name of singer-songwriter Ilana Zsigmond, St. Catherine’s Child is the first artist tonight to recognise and be energised by their unique venue.
Dressed in a cream wool sweater and with a blood-red scarf in her hair, Ilana stands behind her acoustic guitar and sings gently of how “all the ruins here are foreign now to me”. ‘I Know Nothing’ is the first of many songs tonight whose lyrics seem tailor-made for the venue. While St. Lawrence’s Church is no ruin, it’s fair to say such places are not the centre of communities they once were. But their lingering spirit is revived on nights like this, as though the stones remember how they once sang.
After her second song, the uplifting ‘Burden’, Ilana looks puzzled as she reads a note held up by Nick Barber, the promoter (who also takes some excellent photographs tonight). The puzzlement turns to glee as, in her best “flight attendant” voice, she asks that “the owner of the Ford Focus with registration plate… please move your vehicle”.
“I’ve always wanted to do that!” she says gleefully, before breaking into ‘Connecticut River’, her songs proving to be as well-constructed as the stone which they now reverberate from. ‘Every Generation’ will prove to be another highlight, but it is her closing number, an unreleased song about the river flooding in York, which charms the most. I’m a sucker for lyrics that evoke history, and this song’s references to Romans and Vikings hit the spot.
Ilana rolls her eyes and smiles as she sings a line about having “no control”, as she had previously had to stop the song due to losing control of her soaring voice. St. Catherine’s Child is a bubbly presence all night, both on stage and at the merchandise table, and she tells us how she chose her stage name. She studied medieval art and architecture at university, and wrote her dissertation on Saint Catherine. Naturally, she is delighted to have sung at tonight’s venue, and tells us how she was handed a pamphlet on its history. I wonder if this pamphlet informs Ilana of one of the inscriptions on the church bells: My gentle voice shall lead the cheerful sound. It could serve as a fine summary of her own performance.
After a short interval, Kassi Valazza takes to the stage, to applause. She has removed the brown corduroy jacket in which she could be seen earlier tonight, as though she were wandering around Haight-Ashbury, and takes a seat behind her acoustic guitar at centre-stage. She wears a red sweater with unicorns on it, hiding a paisley shirt, and has the bluest bell-bottoms I’ve ever seen. To her left, the long-haired Tobias Berblinger takes a seat behind his electric keys, side-on to the audience like the profile of a Roman coin. His board is garlanded with flowers and a patterned white-and-red blanket. To Kassi’s right, Lewi Longmire reclines behind his electric guitar, his brown cowboy hat tipped forward. He will also provide harmonica and harmonies tonight.
The music builds, with Kassi’s acoustic strumming almost mantra-like as her companions’ refined touches begin to put together the expansive Canyon folk-rock sound which will keep us rapt for the rest of the night. “Birds fly high,” Kassi sings in a rich and melodious voice, her long blonde wavy hair falling over her face as she strums. “They’re black tails on white sails. Why do I think of you, when I’m blue, when I’m blue?” The band have begun as they mean to go on, with a gloriously mellow sound that recalls the best of the psychedelic California music of the Sixties. In the church setting, it doesn’t feel transgressive, but rather a continuation of that search for inner peace which first led to this place being built.
“That’s a bright light,” Kassi says in a slightly spaced-out voice after the song is over, looking up into the white spotlight which shines directly on her. “That’s what you see in church,” quips Lewi. But while their eyes are drawn to this light, which is tethered to one of the stone columns behind me, mine is drawn to the light behind them in the apse. This is now a pinkish-purple hue, funnelling upwards directly behind Kassi, with the rest of the room in shadow. A wooden crucifix stands tall on the altar over her right shoulder. The composition could almost be a religious painting; the three musicians on stage posing for a triptych or altarpiece.
Lewi begins the harmonica bursts that announce ‘Room in the City’, the instrument strapped to him in one of those Dylan-like neck contraptions. He adds further light touches on his guitar as Kassi weaves the lyrics together into a fine song. As the church bells toll quietly for nine o’clock, Kassi tells the congregation the story behind her next song. “You don’t know how fire works,” her friend would tell her after setting newspaper alight, and Kassi says this utterance of her “psychopathic” friend proved a nice juxtaposition to her own anxiousness.
But if there is any anxiety in Kassi, it has been banished from this place. As she sings and picks her way through ‘Rapture’, the folk song which houses this pyromania-inspired lyric, I find my eyes wandering upwards. It won’t be the first time tonight. My attention isn’t wandering – quite the contrary. Something about the scene tonight is so quietly perfect that I feel I must expand my frame to catch a glimpse of what is at work. The colours and hues painting the stone with light; the clarity of Kassi’s guitar strings as it picks the chord progression of the aptly-named ‘Rapture’; her voice as it fills this room – a room purpose-built for the highest ideals… I’ve been fortunate to attend some excellent gigs in the last year and more, but none with the uniquely restful quality tonight has provided.
Kassi follows up ‘Rapture’ with ‘Johnny Dear’, the first song of hers I ever heard and the first tonight which demonstrates her country influence. It’s a compassionate song and one which complements tonight’s vibe, but Tobias’ keys soon rekindle the psychedelic folk-rock vibe in the next song, ‘Watching Planes Go By’. “Michael blames his broken foot on lost time,” Kassi sings. A number of artists nowadays reach for that Sixties sound, but none sound as authentic as Kassi. She has an uncanny knack of delivering these lyrics, these hooks, in that startlingly clear voice, and even when the songs are new (there are five unreleased songs in tonight’s set-list, including four originals) they feel like you’ve known them before, like they’re some lost, overlooked gem from the hippie era that you heard, maybe once, on the radio decades ago. The warmth this generates as you hear them is difficult to describe. It’s akin to that sense of discovery some listeners feel within the confines of a jazz song.
Kassi evokes this feeling again and again tonight, next in ‘Long Way from Home’ – with some good slide guitar from Lewi and another uncannily appropriate lyric about “echoing church bells” – and a cover of the Michael Hurley song ‘Light Green Fellow’. “Some bright light came tumbling through,” Kassi sings next, on the beautiful and expansive ‘Chino’, altering this opening lyric to provide yet another appropriate harmony with St. Lawrence’s. In this venue, Kassi’s psychedelic folk has become almost transcendental, and ‘Chino’ ends with some playing from Tobias which recalls the majesty of a church organ. “Holy prophets, with empty pockets,” Kassi sings in the follow-up, ‘Song for a Season’.
For the next song Kassi plays alone, but even without the instruments of her two companions, she maintains the spell of the music. “Still my love grows, still my love grows,” she sings while picking on her acoustic guitar. “Higher and higher watch it grow, higher and higher out the door.” In fact, it is only when I crane my neck that I realise Lewi and Tobias are not playing. “Now I sit here all alone, keeping control”, Kassi sings.
It’s the third unreleased song of the night, though so natural is the songwriting that it is only later that I can confirm to myself that I’ve never heard any of them before. It’s quickly followed by a fourth, which Kassi says is a new song from an album they’ve recently recorded. Tonight, she is quietly showcasing her songwriting talent – only the Michael Hurley song we heard earlier is not penned by her – and as she sits and sings this latest one – with Tobias and Lewi joining her again – I find myself wondering when I will next be able to hear it. After all, it’s only been five months since the release of her last album. “Roll on, roll on, my dearest soul blue,” Kassi sings for her latest gentle hook, and I begin to recognise what it is about the night that feels so different to other gigs. Between the excellent acoustics of the church hall, and the crisp playing of three musicians who have stayed seated throughout the night, it feels less like a live performance and more like we have been invited to sit in on a special recording session.
As though in recognition of where I now realise I am, Kassi begins her ‘Welcome Song’. “I’ll build you up, I’ll build you down,” she sings, sounding like Grace Slick and yet better, crisper. “The circle always spinning.” It’s followed up with the fantastic non-album single ‘Early Morning Rising’; two songs that suggest a beginning and yet, in keeping with that cosmic circle, arriving now towards the end of the night. You can almost feel the sun and the loamy earth in the latter song, and the acoustic chords during its emphatic wordless chorus reverberate from the stone.
“It’s easier to say than practice what I know,” Kassi sings in her final song, another tantalisingly unreleased display of lyricism. “It’s the weight of the wheel, or so I’m told.” When it’s over, the trio of musicians exit through what’s known as the “devil’s door”, a stout wooden arched door traditionally for heathens and other godless personages (“where they put the band,” Kassi had said earlier in the night, with furrowed brow and mock suspicion). But the three have not been unwelcome in this sanctum tonight, and the audience shouts for an encore.
The three enter again to applause, and resume their seats. “Turn your hymn books to page 47,” Lewi quips, to laughter. Kassi says Lewi has never been in church before, before leading her companions into a tender version of her encore song, ‘Verde River’. Rather than the honky-tonkin’ of the album version, Kassi’s version tonight is slower and more melodious, recapturing the spirit which has pervaded each of tonight’s songs. For one final time, I sit back and absorb the harmonic interstices of the night; the restful moments that seem to breathe between Kassi’s crystal voice and her crisp acoustic strumming, between the tasteful, punctuating notes of Lewi’s electric guitar and Tobias’ echoing ambient soundscapes, and between the pinkish light which pools on the walls behind Kassi Valazza and funnels up towards the top of the apse. As this final song ends, I find myself thinking that if rapture is ever called from on high, it won’t be called in blood and fire or as some awful noise, but gently and serenely, and by chords like these.
Setlist:
(all songs from the album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing and written by Kassi Valazza, unless noted)
- Birds Fly High* (unreleased)
- Room in the City
- Rapture
- Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
- Watching Planes Go By
- Long Way from Home (I’ll Ride You Down)
- Light Green Fellow (Michael Hurley) (unreleased)
- Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
- Song for a Season
- From Newman St. (Higher and Higher)* (unreleased)
- Roll On* (unreleased)
- Welcome Song
- Early Morning Rising (single)
- Weight of the Wheel* (unreleased)
- Encore: Verde River (from Dear Dead Days)
* track titles unconfirmed
Thanks Mike – great write up – I was the promoter who passed Ilana the note 😉
Amended – thanks!