The Cornish artist’s performance of her latest album ‘Howl’ was a finely-tuned thing of beauty, masterfully incorporating experiment and space.

Beneath the glistening gold ceiling of Moth Club, Daisy Rickman performed her latest album ‘Howl’ in full to a crowd of wide-eyed folk enthusiasts on 26th March. Support came from The New Eves, and the quartet charged their way through an energetic set of pounding drums, eerie cello, violin, rhythmic bass, piercing harmonicas and silky flute. Each member taking a turn at an equally striking vocal delivery, a range from high shrills to low groans masterfully whipped the crowd up into a frenzy of impulsive howls, roars and yelps. 

After a short intermission, it was Rickman and her band’s turn to take front and centre. Immediately, sounds of enchanting psychedelia blended seamlessly with Rickman’s signature folk and blues sound. Watching the Cornish artist’s right hand fingerpicking rhythms as she delicately hovers across the fretboard in a fast melodic flurry is an enchanting testament to her skilled playing. Paired with twangy banjo, bellowing cello, shakers and vibraslaps and shuffling, jazzy drums, a full picture came together. Tying the knot securely together were Rickman’s vocals, which slowly drift out amongst the crowd and linger like a soft breeze welcoming the sun at dawn.

One of the most interesting and unique aspects of the set is the way in which Rickman and her band utilise their instruments. Acoustic guitars become percussion instruments for rubber tipped drumsticks to softly beat upon their bodies as well as their strings creating a wide range of atmospheric noises throughout the entire show. All the while bows are finely dragged across not just the cello, but also guitar and banjo and even cymbals, reverberating through the music and further adding to an atmospheric and psychedelic soundscape. It is during these musical intermissions throughout Rickman’s songs and live performances where the core melodies become lost in a trance. It conjures an impression of a thick layer of hypnotic vines blocking the path, and once they are slowly cleared away said path once again reveals itself and the core melody resumes.

One might compare these hypnotic instrumental intermissions to an experience of watching a skilled artist painting a landscape upon a canvas. To the untrained eye, it looks at first simply like blocks of colours and smears of paint appearing, but gradually cascading waterfalls appear amongst snow capped mountains and abundant trees dig their roots into the soil amongst boulders along a shoreline of a vast lake.

Reminiscent of those long lost folk gigs of the 1960s, Rickman and her band put together a mesmerising performance. Truly, it was the kind of performance that her cult-like following will hold dearly in their memories for years to come.