My New Blog

As you can imagine, Karnataka were very enjoyable and put on a solid show. As usual, no support, on stage 8.30, a 2 hour set comprising material mostly from Flame, Light & Angels, with a 30 minute break, finishing just after 11. Around 90 in the audience, with precious few under 50.. 

New vocalist Sertari has an excellent, mid-range Mezzo voice (not sure where Ian finds them) which is very powerful and comes across really well live. They played quite a bit off 'Gathering Light' and in terms of vocal range, Lisa's material is where she is the most natural fit. By contrast (and this is purely subjective) she can't replicate the earlier Rachel material; her voice is too powerful for the delicate, frail, ethereal sounds created there... Delicate Flame was anything but, with the drummer also being too prominent. In time, when they create more new material around her, I'm sure she will come into her own, but I hope that they can move on and leave the Rachel material behind; it is after all, 20 years old now and no-one can do justice to the nature of that material as well as her.

On this subject, they played 3 new tracks, all fairly expansive. Two will require further listens, but the 10 minuter, 'Forgiven', they played prior to the break is really excellent and one to look forward to on a forthcoming album. At present, they are a four piece and to be honest, Ian really does need to find himself a keyboard player, rather than playing to a backing recording; it's just too integral to their sound. A final word for their guitarist; not sure how Ian managed to get Luke Machin (The Tangent/ Cyan/ It Bites/ Maschine) on board, but he's of course a real talent; I just hope they write more progressive, guitar oriented material like 'Forgiven', for him to shine....