When describing Jesca Hoop’s multi-faceted, experimental folk-rock sonnets, it’s hard to beat the words of her one-time mentor Tom Waits: “like a four-sided coin”. In turns sweet and gothic, intimate and mysterious, the Sub Pop signee is an optical illusion: the protruding face that turns out to be a concave mask. Just listen to the title track from this year’s ‘Memories Are Now’, where Hoop hollers “If you’re not here to help, go find some other life to ruin”, her voice practically naked over a stammering, single-note guitar line: a posture simultaneously brittle as porcelain and defiant as a roaring fire. It’s easy to call similarly beguiling writers to mind – from Catrina Round to PJ Harvey, or Mr Waits himself – but Jesca Hoop is a spinning force of her own, a gravity that bends familiar elements into a shape of her own. Unsurprisingly, and like her peers, she commands something of a cult following; so we suggest you pick up tickets early to this outstanding booking by Birmingham titans This Is Tmrw.
Mon 27 Nov 7.30pm at Hare and Hounds, High Street, Kings Heath B14 7JZ £13 skiddle.com
Words: Chris Donald - Gigs Editor
Published on: Thu 2 Nov 2017