The Siskiyou Mountains sit on California’s northern border with Oregon, enveloping the sleepy county seat and former mining town of Yreka. Just as so many shattered dreams ultimately sprang from the California Gold Rush, the music of folkish Canadian outfit Siskiyou is suffused with a bittersweet sense of melancholia.
'Funeral Song' this evening opens the band’s first ever live set on this side of The Atlantic, as it does their self-titled debut album from last year; "We will laugh / Haha, haha!", sings founding member and frontman Colin Huebert in a distinctive, mournful voice that he funnels through the right side of his mouth, giving it the shape of a cracked leaf.
On vinyl and download the group’s sound has the freshness of crisp mountain air; their arrangements are delicately textured and make interesting use of space and dynamics. Their roots lie in folk, no question, and Huebert tonight sports a stylish pair of boots for the foot-stomping that does occur. But Siskiyou are no strumming hillbillies - former Great Lake Swimmer Huebert is an urban creature at heart, whose relocation from Vancouver in recent times led to him finding work on an organic farm, and it's perhaps this fusion that gives his new band their unique sensibility.
Both Siskiyou and its just-issued follow-up Keep Away The Dead (to be given an official UK release next February) were recorded largely without studio time - the former on rooftops and beaches, as well as in hotel rooms, a community hall and, most notably, a stairwell with apparently wondrous acoustics at four in the morning. A keen intelligence is at work in the rich songcraft, and here the four-piece band do a good job of translating this ornamentation and haunting ambience to their live show. Keep Away...'s title track, in particular, is a wonderfully terrifying number boasting a musical refrain that's akin to a mournful steamship coming in.
What's most unexpected and startling about their performance, however – particularly given the delicate restraint of their recorded output – is seeing all hell being let loose in the guise of Shaunn Watt. The sticksman's pounding drums and almost delinquent stage presence blitzkrieg a number of the band's melodies, while at the end of one song he repeatedly cries "I am nobody’s friend". This writer must confess that at first he probably wasn’t one of his; a bit like the character who suddenly strides into the cosy, contented milieu of a play, he unsettles the nest and seems to have stolen the protagonist away from his friends. But there is a palpable chemistry between Watt and Huebert, and on 'Fiery Death' they alternate vocal duties to startling effect. Although the collective never quite manage to establish a solid rapport with the audience, the raw excitement injected by Watt’s energetic display is crowd-pleasing enough in itself.
The other half of the band (namely Erik Arnesen and Peter Carruthers) deftly go about their business on the banjo, bass, wind piano and – on 'Never Ever Ever Ever Again' – the saw. The highlight of the night, though, is 'Big Sur', on which Arnesen's banjo marks time with the subterranean echo of water droplets falling from the ceiling of a cave.
Some of the group's songs admittedly lack development, and as a result can feel frustratingly like distant glimpses of something miraculous that doesn’t quite remain in view for long enough. No doubt this sense of transititoriness in the music is entirely deliberate, as Huebert’s desolate, despairing musings more often than not reveal a preoccupation with mortality. Perhaps, then, it’s fitting that several album tracks are somewhat fleeting, while onstage tonight they’re fleshed out with raucous chorusing from Watt and Huebert. The set proper culminates with a brave cover of Neil Young’s infamous murder ballad 'Revolution Blues', before we’re given the rousing 'Everything I Have' by way of an encore, which once more prominently features Watt’s hot rods. Rather than send us off into the night on the crest of a wave, however, the band choose to depart with the defiantly mordant 'Dead Right Now'. No matter: Yreka! Siskiyou are certainly ones to watch.
Earlier on, Irish songsmith Eoin O’Ruainigh (aka Oh Ruin, a play on his surname) informed us all that Steven Seagal has the biggest hands in New Orleans, and that he harbours hopes of one day being able to emulate the actor's 'tickling' of the fretboard. On tonight's evidence, there's already plenty to admire in O'Ruainigh's own bluesy folk offerings. The singer is at times John Martynesque, and never less than powerful, in his delivery, as he conjures rich resonance from his electrified acoustic.
He apologised at the outset for being "a little shaky.....‘cause you know what happens at the weekend". Oh ruin, indeed. RW now also knows what happens during the week: Eoin is a luthier at his workshop in Hackney, making replica Gibson guitars. He’s already played in support acts for, among others, some fella called Morrissey. Once again, watch this space.
To view a gallery of Richard Gray's photos from the Lexington show, click here.
