By Mat Smith
@MJASmith
CAUGHT LIVE: TOM BAXTER AT THE STABLES, WAVENDON 13.10.14
British singer Tom Baxter is that rare thing - an artists' artist, with backslapping praise from luminaries like Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright and others, but also popular.
The plaintive, emotional outpourings of 'Better' from his second album Skybound (2008) became a deserved hit after being featured on the soundtrack to Simon Pegg's Run Fatboy Run, starting a trend of producers deploying Baxter's music whenever a movie or TV programme needed a stirring anthem to back its most critical moments.
For his new album, The Uncarved Block - Part 1, Baxter dispensed with the lush production and orchestration that dominated the likes of Skybound in favour of something much more intimate, finding the singer backed only by gentle acoustic guitar or piano. Baxter was always able to switch effortlessly between soaring, soulful ballads and bruised introspection, but his new material brings with it a sense of tenderness unlike anything else he's recorded to date.
That cosy approach was on display at his show at The Stables, with a floor lamp and occasional table creating the sense of hearing Baxter perform these songs in his own lounge. Bereft of complex arrangements, songs are naked, delivered with sensuality or embittered, tortured anguish all at once; with no strings or big production values to emphasise the sentiment, what's left is little more than the troubadour with his lyrics under the spotlight. Falling somewhere between an artsy poetry-loving Greenwich Village beatnik and the Brazilian romanticism of Caetano Veloso, Baxter proved himself perfectly adept at wringing subtle emotive gestures and pictures from the most elemental of means.
With the rain hammering down outside and leaves spinning from the trees, it's not hard to call this music sombre, autumnal, melancholy even, but to define it thus would entirely miss the serene and tender, if not hopeful, edge to some of these songs. At the other end of the spectrum, one of the highlights of the set was his performance of 'A Night Like This', complete with frantic, angry rock 'n' roll strumming and sudden drops into quiet passages, all of which made acoustic music far more interesting than it can often be, particularly when he knocked his stool over while lost in the rapturous conclusion.
Somewhat inevitably, the acoustic format of the set leant itself to long, rambling and occasionally humorous story-telling by Baxter, something which he castigated himself for at one point during one particular tale. Nevertheless, in among stories about being asked by his friend David Schwimmer to write a song for his wedding ('Arc Of Your Mallet') or being asked to perform a private concert for a rich art-loving couple in Ireland, Baxter revealed the humble origins of the songs for The Uncarved Block: the album was an attempt to find the real Tom Baxter, the one that existed before fame and success and the influences accumulated since childhood, while also providing an opportunity to rid himself of an extended period of writer's block and doubts over whether to ditch music altogether, for which he turned to poets Murray Lachlan Young and Rumi for help and inspiration respectively.
The concert was prefaced by sets from sometime Milton Keynes resident Daniela Bove's particular brand of barefoot heartbreak and Baxter's equally talented, mesmerising sister Vashti Anna, whose appearance on three songs - including 'Miracle' and the encore of 'Better' - provided some of the most outstanding moments of this beguiling, if understated performance.
