Sentient @ The King Athur Glastonbury

This evening I boarded the interstellar space schooner Sentient for a journey through the audio multiverse. The crew were: Steffe Sharpstrings (whose strings were indeed as sharp as ever) who wove wonderfully organic and fluid threads through the magical synth landscapes created by master knob twiddler Mr Joie Hinton, stonking basslines were provided by Subs, which were complemented beautifully by Tanyas excellent drumming, both drove Sentient forward and kept our course true.

Our musical journey was to be in two parts. On the first leg (about an hour) the band delighted the audience with a series of wonderfully rich musical landscapes travelled through with magical grace. Some tracks were transcendental as Steffes exquisite noodling and sublime glissando (using technical vernacular I'd certainly describe it as shit hot) and Joies tweeking and masterful Synthesis took hold of your senses and sent them soaring. Whilst other tracks got the audience energetically moving, with Tanya drumming some shamanic beats which woke your primal dancer and Subs' deep rich bass really driving the whole groove home and people really love it. Mix into all of that some elements of jazz and funk and it went something like that. The second leg was a mighty 45 minute jam, not your regular jam, no sir, this was a top shelf special reserve conserve of improvisational genius. It would be hard to adequately describe the music we were gifted and I couldn't do it justice anyway; so I'm just going to say it was MENTAL. The musicianship of all involved was first class and was complemented nicely by a groovy light show provided by DMTV. What a fine evening, Sentient are going from strength to strength and long may it continue, I can't wait to see them again. Too gushy a review you say? Well, you weren't there, they were bloody marvellous! All that said, I was bemused as to why the venue wasn't overflowing, what's wrong with folk? If you see Sentient are playing near you, get out and see them, you wont be disappointed.

I should say a little something about the King Arthur in Glastonbury. Upon entering the King Arthur I was welcomed by Brun who was sat at the bar energetically expressing himself through both word and gesture (I imagined him to be their concierge, unofficial I'm sure, although he did greet warmly all who entered). Brun introduced folk to me and showed me where everything was; later he could be seen dancing erratically or sat on the edge of the stage throwing the occasional shape or random arm gesture.  A nice fellow. There's a fine vibe about the place, all the staff were lovely and a really friendly atmosphere. The performance area is at the back, it isn't big, though neither is it too small. Overall the King Arthur is a great pub/venue of the type much needed in our increasingly corporatized venue/music landscape. And they put on bands like Sentient, so, all hail the King.