I was fortunate enough to see Rebekka Karijord live this week in London at the quaint and cosy Heath Street Baptist Church. The small crowd and I were wowed into silence as Rebekka and her two friends took the stage by storm and with it made me a very big fan.
Rebekka alternated between singing front and centre into several microphones and then playing a prepared piano that she’d tape up in different places to give the piano different feels. Her voice is both Earth and fire as she feels grounded with a husk, but is quite happy to go rogue and belt it out from the pit of her stomach. She played nearly the entire new album Mother Tongue in order bar a few tracks and between them documented her journey of pregnancy and explaining what some of the sounds in the album were about. Each story was fascinating and as someone who hadn’t really looked into her home life, it shed a new light and level of emotion on every single track.
As an album about motherhood, and the passing of knowledge from generation to generation – it was wonderfully poignant that Rebekka announced she was pregnant – and not just her but both her tour mates too! With three becoming six on stage, they played off each other lyrically and it felt like a band of sisters touring together and sharing something special on stage. In particular the way they sung Mother Tongue was tear inducing, and Mausoleum too but for very different moods and reasons.
After the album event, the concert concluded with several classics such as an organ version of “Use My Body While It’s Still Young” and a personal highlight “Ode to What Was Lost” which ended the concert in a whaling blaze of glory.
Rebekka vocally was on point, the way she brought out textures of the album in the background of the synths and piano were superb and getting to know the lady herself on stage was a revelation. She talked of talking to loads of women to share their stories of hopes and dreams and I’m really keen to see what comes of that in the future too as it sounds like a goldmine of inspiration – as was the concert itself. A quietly effecting night of intense reflection.
I totally agree. One of the best concerts I’ve been to for a long time. The atmosphere in the church was very appropriate for the music and, while it would have been nice for more people to witness the beauty of the songs and the performance, it did mean that for those of us lucky enough to be there it seemed like a very personal performance.