Parade is a project put together by York-based singer-songwriter and musician Chris Johnson, who has played at various points with Fish and Mostly Autumn, as well as fronting a number of local York bands over the years. The band also involves vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anne-Marie Helder and drummer Gavin Griffiths, both members of the current Panic Room and Mostly Autumn lineups. It’s completed with two of Chris’ long-term York associates, Patrick Berry on bass and Chris Farrel on lead guitar, the latter of whom replaced Parade’s original guitarist Simon Snaize.

Their one album to date, The Fabric on the surface sounded like indie with its sparse chiming guitars and clattering drums. Repeated listens reveal some real musical depth, especially with the multi-layered vocal harmonies. With its depth and sonic experimentalism it still (to me) falls within the broad spectrum of progressive rock while managing to avoid all the musical clichés of the genre.

The Stereo is a cozy little venue with a capacity of just a hundred or so. located just outside the medieval city walls, Support was local band In Spades Inc, who played us forty minutes of competent hard rock. By the time Parade took the stage, the venue was pretty much full, if not quite sold out, with quite a few familiar faces in the crowd.

Their setlist naturally drew very heavily from The Fabric; in fact I think they played the entire album. The five-piece band managed to translate the multi-layered arrangements from the record extremely well in a live setting, albeit with a lot more energy, with Gavin giving it some serious welly on the drums at times. Of the non-Fabric songs, the semi-acoustic country and western arrangement of one of Chris’ solo songs, “The Luckiest Man Alive”, featuring Patrick on stand-up double bass, was an unexpected highlight of the evening.

Compared with her lead role in Panic Room the previous weekend, Anne-Marie Helder is content to play a supporting role, playing keys and singing harmony lines, leaving the spotlight for Chris.  Although when she does take the lead, such as the wordless eastern-sounding closing section of “High Life”, the result is mesmerising.

After a powerful rendition of the album closer, “Ending”, which left me wondering how on earth two vocalists could reproduce those rich vocal harmonies live, they encored with a brand new number, “Monochrome”, before ending the evening with a muscular version of “Science and Machinery”, a song Chris originally performed with Mostly Autumn back in 2007. I thought it sounded out of place in MA’s set. Here, enhanced by Chris Farrel’s E-Bow, it fitted Parade’s set perfectly.

How many mountains must you face before you learn to climb. I’m going to give you what it takes, my Universal Child.

I couldn’t just listen to the preview of “Universal Child,” a preview from the Diva’s upcoming Christmas album.

This lady of the orange crew cut from a distant past; really who could’ve known Annie Lennox’d be such a beautiful person inside and out? With an accompanying voice that adds seemingly effortless allure to anything.

This song is words from a universal mother administering to as many children who can hear her that their pain is not being ignored.

“How many mountains must you face before you learn to climb. I’m going to give you what it takes, my Universal Child.”

Children who are stronger because of what they’ve been through; stronger than the people they sometimes pine to be. Who are inspirations to others, even if they don’t know it.

Universal themes inside a unique voice.

And then quicken your heart again. This Can’t Be My Life (Wrong Records) is a slice through someone’s body, looking at hidden beauties amid the mess.

Ruth Gerson’s series of stories pull at your conscience – like trials and unsettling events always do for the introspective.

She fell in the river before she could cry. The spring tide pulled her under. I jumped into save her, the waves came like fire. They pushed me aside as they flung her. Her neck snapped like a branch as her head hit the banks and the rocks ripped her blue dress right from her.”

From “Black Water”, those words happened to be the first I heard from Gerson’s new CD. Whispered, torn from her lips as if telling someone what she just saw, still standing out in the cold crying. A story that seems to be of untimely, violent, drowning death, through the voice of the murder. Yet it has a 1,000 interpretations and new ones come at each listen. The perfect picture of atmosphere and scene the words created made me turn my head sideways, quizzically, ready to believe there was something worth paying attention to.

“Take It Slow”, the last song on the just released …My Life similarly has character, more than just evoked feelings. A journey through a back road – literal or of the mind – everything at first a blur, rather than distinct. It’s an admonishment to herself to look at details and draw from them rather than not having any idea where she’s going so quickly.

So many of Gerson’s songs on this latest release – recorded and mixed by Nic Hard (The Bravery) and Daniel Wise (Scissor Sisters) make you want to find out more about what’s happening and what will happen next; the lyrics pushed to the fore, with simple vocal and guitar or vocal and piano arrangements. In a way it’s ironic because life – and wanting to raise new life – pushed the release of this album back three years. So the life written about then is different now, and now is a better place, she says.

Gerson’s arrangements tell complex stories in uncomplicated ways. Yet underdone can be overdone. The simplicity doesn’t show or save “Does You Heart Weep” and “Hazel.” Both drown in tears and earnest catatonia; good for people in similar misery, yet not quite telling their tale of woe in a way that brings empathy or even sympathy. Rather than the other tales told with the intent share, with these two songs Gerson seems to be talking only to herself.

Then “You Lie” comes dancing along after them as mental relief. There’s a quicker, pushing, foot-tapping, hip-grinding beat that somehow, because of the pace and despite the lyrics, manages to give back the hope that the two songs before it tried to bloodily rip away.

Throughout the album, there’s an anger, threaded gently and running deep, relentless and ceaseless — shared with the likes of Fiona, Ani, Kitten, Alanis, Liz or Tori, the edge of Sheryl, without sounding quite like any of them. This vocal coach has a rich voice that holds onto words, pulling every possible expression out, exposed.

For better or worse, “Stay With Me” is the most Tori-like. Layered self-referential, somewhat under-enunciated lyrics that, despite the apparent clarity of the title, still leave a great deal open to interpretation. You also hear melody strains in the background of Nirvana’s, “Heart-Shaped Box” which if not accidental is pure genius.

It’s beautiful.

Some music out there edges your eyes closed until you sleep. You can close your eyes to Ruth Gerson, but she’ll keep your brain active, restless, as, laying next to her, you look for life’s many meanings.

Ruth Gerson – http://ruthgerson.com

Via Australia, jazz infusion, the instrumental group Trinkets, and session play it becomes more and more clear in listening, where she’s been.

Two songs back to back cover so much territory. “Bitch” follows “Little Girl.” Though musically SJL easily covers the purity / whore spectrum fine, a dark dark cloud hovers over both songs. There’s no breeze pushing the bad smells away; nothing to cool the pain like a mother’s breath on a scary wound. Both are raw and open.

“Little Girl” goes through a series of childhood memories of people she knew back then, back when. The listener is never quite sure whether these are self-referential or just fictional observations of what might have happened. No doubt intended this way, the song is immature, it’s twee — despite the subject matter — with the reflective capacity, not of the adult looking back but the innocence of the girl only a few small steps removed from it all.

While a couple of phrases clang – “When I was just a little little girl, I had a best friend, her skin was black” – much more prominent is an angelic harmony that glides across the surface; bringing to mind the same girl spinning in slow motion across an ice rink’s oval, her breath clouding.

Overall, the voice of this CD, Lack, is of someone with no answers, yet who still sees a black and white world as visited through these songs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as the messages are clearer. In a news release, SJL says her creation, is “A little bit red earth and desert sky, a little bit glistening strings and pixie twists.”

“Bitch” starts to show the complex patterns, well yeah I’m going to go here, being knitted together. There are enough music elements — carefully, deliberatively placed? — to keep you guessing about what might come next. Psychobilly, folk, pop, gothic, chanteuse. There’s violin, of course, since Lack is an accomplished and celebrated artist with the instrument. That makes her restraint on the CD all the more impressive. Sparsity is all the more effective then when diluting every song with an excess of her known strength. When a pull on the bow ends a phrase, a section of a song, it’s shiveringly memorable rather than caught and easily forgotten in the eddy of sound.

It’s clever.

The lead off track, Blank Page Day floats a great idea, the urge or desire to wipe the slate clean every morning. Here the lyrics are of more interest than the voice – as if SJL is warming up her voice ready for the concert. Horns provide a great contrast and zest. Though this also seems like it might fit into any chick flick soundtrack. We’ll call that a compliment for now.

The pizzicato notes and bass and the life of “Old Man Perry” perk and compel and

“I was so focused on this song I was actually knitting to the beat,” my girlfriend said, laughing as she completed a sweater sleeve cap.

“Dancer” and “Papa Don’t Go So Fast” are more introspective sounding. “Dancing” echoes “Little Girl” in it’s child-like perspective, while simultaneously stepping delicately around and through and out the other side of flowering womanhood. While “Papa…” offers a history lesson and an aurora australis soundscape; SJL’s voice twists and waves and turns and shows off to an appreciative world, woven into the violin vibrations.

Despite such a disparate range of sounds, a few of the songs end up paced in a similar. “Masked Man” “Knitting Song” and “Long Way To Go” wash over your consciousness, as if the ear can’t catch the subtleties first through. It’s a fine line when listening to an entire album of songs like this; each sounds equisite in isolation, yet there’s a purity or beauty threshold that’s different for everyone.

Yet, in each song, there’s always something new, however small, a word, a tone, a depth (“that’s cello, not violin!”), that wasn’t in the previous song. These alone can prick your ears to tune in and get deeper into underlying patterns. It wears well.

(Credit: Photos by Skye Media)