Concert review: Aldous Harding at The Orange Peel
Carefully maneuvering across the front of the Orange Peel stage, eyeing the audience like a hawk before coming to a total standstill, Aldous Harding conducted moments of silence as songs unto themselves. The idea of a performer simply stewing in total ambiance is so foreign to most audiences that it’s almost humorous to behold in person. The June 14 Asheville crowd exemplified this sentiment by whooping, cheering, and throwing out random phrases as if that would jolt Harding (née Hannah Sian Topp) out of whatever self-induced trance she had gotten into.
“There’s a problem with the computer,” she softly announced in deadpan, solving the mystery and producing something close to a sigh of relief from concertgoers. The New Zealand singer/songwriter had already performed three songs before the technical issues started, leaving attendees on edge as to what she’d do next. After fielding such banter from the audience as, “Tell us about your day!” and, “Thank you for coming to Asheville!” with tart answers and a final declaration of, “I can’t really hear you, you know that?” the rest of the show went off without a hitch, showcasing Harding and her band’s grace under pressure and their unusual command of presence.
Opening her set with “Ennui” — the intro track from her latest LP, Warm Chris — Harding then rotated between sitting with her acoustic guitar and standing sans instrument as her band handled the playing. Said bandmates likewise manned multiple instruments throughout the night, including a trumpet-wielding drummer who perfectly complemented the moody atmosphere of Harding’s compositions.
This ambiance was enough to elicit a sense of extreme personal contemplation, and I would find my mind just racing through thoughts or drifting to other places as the band played on. This wasn’t out of boredom or any sort of apathy, but instead a communion with the dreamy quality of Harding’s powerful whisper of a voice. It was like receiving an intimate performance at a smoky jazz bar where patron and performer were mere feet from each other. However, I would then snap back to reality at the end of a song to find myself a good deal more farther away than my perceived proximity.
As an entire experience, mostly cultivated from the aforementioned album that consists of such tunes as “Tick Tock,” “Leathery Whip,” and “Lawn,” it’s difficult to put into words a coherent detailing of Harding’s performance. Neither flashy, performative, overly quirky, or any other pejoratives that one could lob at an indie-folk artist, she also managed to avoid being stiff or staid — often the case with artists interested in solely the music and nothing else.
Instead, Harding struck a perfect balance between unsettling and comforting. When a song ended, no one but her bandmates knew if she’d resume her silent crowd observations or simply go into the next number. It was a simple, stark display of the unique entertainer that Harding is — all said with next to no words.
(Photos by Jonny Leather)
