It's been over 18 months since Belle & Sebastian played a gig in Britain, at the Bowlie festival they curated at Camber Sands. For the band's large and notoriously devoted following, the deprivation has been excruciating.
Respite, though, can come in oblique ways. Specifically, this time, in a two-night London residency starring the band's multi-instrumentalist Isobel Campbell and a troupe of Scottish jazz types, with bit parts for fellow B&S stalwarts Stevie Jackson and Chris Geddes.
Jackson appears first, playing guitar and harmonica - and whistling - in the Bill Wells Trio. Pianist Wells has cultivated a hip reputation over the past few years as, amusingly, Stirling's answer to Sun Ra. Currently, his take on jazz is much less hectic and complex, tending towards moody, rain-spattered nocturnes. And very effective it is, too, especially when Jackson on harmonica (evidently having spent some time listening to John Barry's 'Midnight Cowboy' score) duels, gently, with the muted trumpet of Robert Henderson for 'Incorrect Practice'.
Wells seems to be turning up on every record out of Glasgow recently, so it's little surprise to finding him a key player in The Gentle Waves. Isobel Campbell's always been assumed to be the most precious member of Belle & Sebastian, the Indie Princess dedicated to fey jangles and the most insipid, unadventurous music. Her latest incarnation of The Gentle Waves (on second album, 'Swansong For You'), however, is much more ambitious.
Wells, looking like a grumpy Buddha, is plainly a big influence on these delicate epics, but Campbell has a good taste and range so that 'There Was Magic, Then' and 'Hold Back A Thousand Hours' come on like Nancy Sinatra, or Francoise Hardy perhaps, singing the hits of Nick Drake.
There's still the residue of tweeness lingering: songs which begin, Do you like pretty things? Would you caress broken wings? we can do without. But by the end, she's belting out the big band standard 'The Beat Goes On' (revived the other year by The All-Seeing I) and beatnik-dancing like Audrey Hepburn, while the bizarre and brilliant five-piece horn section - featuring tuba, obviously - let fly. A night of expanding horizons and battering stereotypes couldn't have had a more joyous conclusion.
IMAGES: HAYLEY MADDEN
