News from the Local

Doveman 05-11-2008 17:17:01 Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett) has played London countless times as pianist par excellence with Antony (and the Johnsons), Martha Wainwright, Bebel Gilberto and many more besides. Tonight he is at east London's Cafe Oto a (quite) new art and music space playing the first full set of Doveman songs the capital has had the chance to hear. As is the case with artists like Doveman, word has spread slowly since his debut album Acrobat and its growing status as favourite record of bands, artists etc. The result is fifty or so die hard silent fans watching agog as the band (tonight featuring Jamie Morisson, Sam Amidon, Beth Orton and Nico Muhly) works its way through a magical set of seemingly half improvised versions of Doveman's sparse, beautiful, patient music. Fun is not the word I thought I'd come away with, but fun is what it was, for us, and for the band. When Bartlett announces the last song, a request for Acrobat comes from the front and the band duly obliges with a song neither has ever played together and Thomas not for a few years - such that he forgets the words, asks Muhly to snap open a cd from the merch table and hold the cd booklet in front of him by candlelight so he can finish the song.

Doveman and Sam Amidon return to the UK in January for eleven dates with David Thomas Broughton. << Back to News Overview