Live Review

Idiot Glee – Madam Jojo’s, London

• 29th Nov 2010

There’s a bit of a leap from producing introspective DIY-fi in your home in Lexington, Kentucky to performing in clubs in London’s Soho. But James Friley, who is Idiot Glee, didn’t appear to think so. He looped his loops and twiddled his sampler with a shy and casual aplomb that suggested he was indifferent to his burlesque surrounds in Madam Jojo’s on Tuesday night.

Any sort of stage presence was conspicuously not present. “…Glee… Kentucky… Thank…” he mumbled as he shuffled off at the end of his gig. “What?” asked we. It was endearing though – this lack of pretension, this confident humility. It suits Idiot Glee’s style of quaintly nostalgic yet creepily unique music.

And the quiet, methodic manner in which he delivers his tunes belies the impact of his sound, with its soaring organ-like keyboards and intricate, retrospective samples. His voice too, is strong and well controlled, wavering in all the right ways to give the songs a lovely personal quality, and looped to provide layer upon layer of echoing harmonies. While he might not have captivated the room, there were times during his set when time in the room seemed to stand still.

Finding the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds in a flea market a few years was apparently a turning point for Friley, and he describes his sound as “post doo-wop”. Such talk implies a lightness and sweetness, though, that isn’t necessarily there. Idiot Glee’s tunes are darker, slower, a little more eerie.

His accomplished cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t no Sunshine” on Tuesday night serves as a nice example – a blast from the past, but slowed down, overlaid with intertwining vocals and samples, and ending in a series a low-key angsty howls. It’s nice, clever, interesting stuff.

He’s causing a bit of a storm in the MySpace teacup, this young Idiot Glee fellow with his well-crafted tunes. He’s well worth a listen and the cost of a download or two – “All Packed Up” in particular is a wee gem to treasure. But now that Friley has ventured out of virtual space and is touring, poet-and-a-one-man-band style, in the real world, it’s also worth popping along to see him live. He might not put on a spectacular show but he produces some spectacularly special songs.