Sampha at the O2 Academy Bristol
Posted on: 2017-03-28
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Serial collaborator and electronic soul extraordinaire Sampha brings a live rendering of his debut album Process to Bristol’s O2 Academy.
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Ever since he first met Kwes through MySpace way back in 2007, Sampha has been patiently coiling his spring. Though the 28-year-old has intermittently tested its elasticity, furtively teasing his explosion with a scattering of singles and collaborations dropped sporadically in the decade since, the lengthy silences which followed each one saw the Morden boy wind his wire tighter and tighter.
In 2011, he lent his breathy falsetto to early singles from SBTRKT, his new Young Turks label-mate, and dueted with Jessie Ware on ‘Valentine’, before retreating into the background. Two years later he again appeared poised to break into the sunlight when he released an EP and Drake borrowed his piano ballad ‘Too Much’ for the all-conquering Nothing Was The Same; what followed, however, was more of the same: nothing.
Or very little, at least, until last year, when he featured on two of its best albums, Solange’s stunning A Seat at the Table and Kanye West’s amorphous monster The Life of Pablo. These appearances were compounded by a succession of singles which pointed, incontrovertibly, to his debut, Process, which arrived in January 2017. The release of the record also triggered the release of the spring, which propelled the singer beyond the elastic limit and into the realm of superstardom that had been beckoning for ten years.
It appears, based on his performance at Bristol’s O2 Academy, that the role of superstar is not one with which Sampha is, as of yet, entirely comfortable. The quality of his setlist, which draws heavily from Process, is easily apparent; though it is beset with infrequent flaws which betray his relative immaturity as a live performer, and the audience interaction, with which it is infrequently punctuated, is (though endearing) slightly nervous.
Flanked by a drummer (clad in an FC St Pauli football shirt, in a subtle nod to support act Pauli) and a knob-twiddler stood behind a stack of synthesisers, Sampha opens proceedings per the album with its overture track, ‘Plastic 100°C’. His trickling keys accompany his introductory yelps and lines before beats begin to burst forth, serving to engender both admiration and concern in equal portions . What emerges as ominously clear from this introductory salvo is how loud this backing actually is. Initially impressive, the noise with which the song is backed comes worryingly close to overwhelming his idiosyncratic vocal, even when it is at its strongest.
Much of Sampha’s appeal stems from the supple relationship between his bravado and falsetto, and the delicate space that exists between the two as they interact. This is captured with crystalline clarity on record, yet against this live backdrop the latter doesn’t stand a chance, and is engulfed by crashing drums and breakbeats on both ‘Timmy’s Prayer’ and ‘Reverse Faults’, with that contrast lost for the rest of the set. It is worth noting at this point that he isn’t exactly helped by his audience who are talkative to a point exceeding rudeness, with their chatter bleeding over from inter-song pauses to be audible during the songs themselves.
Despite these detractions, the singer is still able to throw shades of light and dark. By cleverly manipulating the tension between sound and silence, he heralds the natural conclusion of phrases with pauses cleverly delayed to heighten eventual gratification. With this formula, he reaps the reward on ‘Under’, a slow-burning number which grows steadily to its coda, the vital howl of “I’m gasping for air”. This is employed similarly well on the penultimate songs of his set, ‘Kora Sings’ and ‘Blood On Me’, which are both carried off with a captivating urgency, complete with dynamic movement from the otherwise staid singer.
Exceeding this evident brilliance, though, Sampha’s real performative strength lies in his effective working of simplicity. He is allowed to prove this when his cohorts exit the stage, leaving the singer alone, playfully tinkling his keys. The hitherto biggest cheer of the evening swells around the auditorium as his improvisation swims into focus as the introduction to ‘Too Much’ (sans Drake), which shows off the singular richness of his voice as it progresses.
A better reception still is reserved for his final song, ‘(No One Knows Me) Like The Piano’, which comes with identically sparse accompaniment. The ballad, written after the recent death of his mother, finds Sampha at his most candid and confessional, with notes of occasional rawness adding genuine pathos to his delivery. The tenderness of this performance is accentuated by the lighting, which darkens uniformly but for a solitary lightbulb, descending to illuminate a halo around the piano and gild a moment of perfect poignancy.
On this evening’s evidence, Sampha is not yet on a par with some of the performers with which he has collaborated. He is, however, very much in the process of pulling alongside them.
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An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
