Bill Ryder-Jones @ Bristol Thekla (Jessica Bartolini / Live4ever)
Bill Ryder-Jones played as big a role as anybody in Live4ever’s end-of-year lists for 2018, featuring among our Best Albums thanks to Yawn and Best Tracks courtesy of its And Then There’s You single.
Now touring the UK and Ireland at the start of this year, Ryder-Jones was at the Bristol Thekla on February 17th.
Click here for the photos
“It’s all quite some distance to have travelled for an artist whose first release after leaving The Coral was with the Liverpool Philharmonic,” our Yawn review reads. “But such is Ryder-Jones’ articulate self-possession that this more purist approach to his work seems more art than discouragement, the Pavement-paced throb of There Are Worse Things I Could Do – its lyrics about open doors and closed minds – something that seems designed to go anywhere the committed listener wants to take it, preferably to their hearts.”
“To complete the task set by its creator, Yawn needs to pose as a horse of Troy to unpick the 21st century vagaries of modern music consumption with its skips, playlists and general unfaithfulness to the musician’s conscience.”
“At times though, his trademark ambiguity has everyone guessing; And Then There’s You is an effortless tilt at of the sort indie pop you feel he could reel off in his sleep, whilst in the maternal juxtaposition of Mither, the foothills of a truest love are held back by austerity and dryness of mouth.”