EIF 2024 Jordan Rakei Usher Hall 8th August Review
Photo Jordan Rakei, 08.08.24 © Maxime Ragni
Jordan Rakei was at the Usher Hall Edinburgh tonight, a concert that was part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Officially, Jordan Rakei is on tour now to promote his new and fifth album “The Loop” which was released in May this year, but he is also taking the opportunity to bring music from his diverse back catalogue over the last 10 years or so to the stage.
If you have not heard of Jonathan Rakei, he is a New Zealand born and raised in Australia, multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer, and GRAMMY nominee, whose talents are in demand by many of the world’s top recording and performance artists. It made a pleasant change then to be at a headline EIF concert where the audience was made up of people a lot younger than you often get. Many people in this audience were obviously long-time fans of Jordan’s music as they obviously knew the older songs so well, and when you are discovering an artist’s music for the first time, like I was tonight, that can be an odd experience.
I was at least on more familiar ground with artists that Jordan Rakei credits as being formative in his childhood and as being major sources of influence for his new album, citing amongst them Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield. Jordan Rakei is certainly capturing the essence of these great artists/performers in his music, but he is not copying them, instead he is often taking a musical thread and weaving something entirely new in his music, and the end result is often something that exists in some timeless bubble of sounds and rhythms.
Whether it was songs from his back catalogue like “Mad World”, “Bruises” and “Wildfire” or new material such as “Freedom”, or “Forgive”, the audience reaction was always the same – appreciative, but polite – something that Jordan himself commented on, thanking the crowd for their respect for his music.
Obviously a lot of Jordan’s music is a lot more at home at an open air music festival somewhere in the world than in the seated auditorium of a specially built classic music hall that was opened in 1914. What does not change though is the music and the words, and so much of Jordan’s work is delicate and introspective, desperately looking for answers and exploring for the good and the bad human relationships, often at what appears to be a very personal level.
It is good to clearly see now that the Edinburgh International Festival has evolved over the years to the point that contemporary artists like Jordan Rakei are given as much prominence as classical musicians and orchestras and in this case are playing at the same venues.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
If you have not heard of Jonathan Rakei, he is a New Zealand born and raised in Australia, multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer, and GRAMMY nominee, whose talents are in demand by many of the world’s top recording and performance artists. It made a pleasant change then to be at a headline EIF concert where the audience was made up of people a lot younger than you often get. Many people in this audience were obviously long-time fans of Jordan’s music as they obviously knew the older songs so well, and when you are discovering an artist’s music for the first time, like I was tonight, that can be an odd experience.
I was at least on more familiar ground with artists that Jordan Rakei credits as being formative in his childhood and as being major sources of influence for his new album, citing amongst them Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield. Jordan Rakei is certainly capturing the essence of these great artists/performers in his music, but he is not copying them, instead he is often taking a musical thread and weaving something entirely new in his music, and the end result is often something that exists in some timeless bubble of sounds and rhythms.
Whether it was songs from his back catalogue like “Mad World”, “Bruises” and “Wildfire” or new material such as “Freedom”, or “Forgive”, the audience reaction was always the same – appreciative, but polite – something that Jordan himself commented on, thanking the crowd for their respect for his music.
Obviously a lot of Jordan’s music is a lot more at home at an open air music festival somewhere in the world than in the seated auditorium of a specially built classic music hall that was opened in 1914. What does not change though is the music and the words, and so much of Jordan’s work is delicate and introspective, desperately looking for answers and exploring for the good and the bad human relationships, often at what appears to be a very personal level.
It is good to clearly see now that the Edinburgh International Festival has evolved over the years to the point that contemporary artists like Jordan Rakei are given as much prominence as classical musicians and orchestras and in this case are playing at the same venues.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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