By Diane Goldie
Nines , Peckham – Tuesday 15th November 2016
The club was packed with warm vibes and smiles, happy humans of all ages , all with an air of excited anticipation. We had all come to see an emerging talent of sophisticated beauty and flow: Alxndr London. We weren’t to be disappointed.
I first came across Alxndr at AfroPunk London where I had made a pilgrimage to see Grace Jones. He was there with his beautiful Queen and manager Jocelyn, both of them dressed in cream and white with gold accessories and Alxndr was wearing his trademark Chinese conical hat and kimono. Was there any wonder he became the most photographed person at that extremely stylish event? His gentle manner and shy, sweet spirit was most charming , I had no idea that he was such a talented musician until I delved deeper . Still waters run deep it seems…
Impossible to define the genre of Alxndr’s self penned music, the audience were faced with a band of people on stage with an array of traditional and digital instruments. The line up was as follows:
Alxndr London – Lead
Harrison Atlee – Musical Director / Keys
JP Thwaites aka Happy Cat – Guitar
Jobey – Bass
Idriis aka Entek – Drums
Morgan Lovelle & Sarah Katende – Backing Vocalists
There are shades of Curtis Mayfield in the vocals, in Alxndr’s beautiful falsetto but he can also delve into unexpected beautiful dark deep velvet tones that get the hairs on the back of your neck prickling. There are beautiful pregnant pauses and rhythmic surprises that keep you delighted. The guitar riffs were sometimes delicate and purposeful and other times wild and pure rock. Then there is the journey into Indian percussion that introduces perhaps my favourite track, Harrison off of Alxndr’s new EP A Long Time Ago where he invites the audience to ‘drown inside his love’. I didn’t need asking twice. His lyrics are sensitive and searching “ Drink in every hour, baptise every single moment in your power”. Those lyrics are so pertinent for now. Never have we needed an invitation to live in the moment more than now. More than anything else, the one thing you get from Alxndr London’s musical experience is the feeling of real human connection. He’s very likely to burst into a spontaneous giggle in the middle of a song, reflecting his very light and bright spirit as well as delivering a gasp of shock as he sang about a lustful moment in his track, Cold Sun. That’s the balance and the humanity , wholeness and beauty. The audience were more than ready for the invitation to drown inside his love, as they sang along with the backing singers readily, taking a rehearsed piece into the realms of jamming and participating with the audience , most would make a mess of this but because of the deep sense of connection, of course it worked beautifully as if rehearsed.
A brand new song( … ) was premiered. It was a slight departure from the other songs but still had that same intensity and left my friend quite emotionally overwhelmed. Music has the power to tap straight into the emotions. Alxndr London is like a mainline to the heart.
He was beautifully supported by his extremely talented band and the backing singers. We all just didn’t want the night to end. The vibe was so beautiful, the warmth and connection in the room belied the fact that Donald Trump had just been elected the leader of the free world. In times like these, we need Alxndr London with his mainline to the heart. This man has only been making music for a year. Watch out world…
*Setlist:*
Date X
Gunshot
Cold Sun
XXX
Shuffle – synth
Harrison
13
- ••
Jupiter & Pluto (Encore)