Article by Umberto Scaramozzino (Turin) – Photo by Davide Merli (Milan)
What a great band i Tapir!a London sextet who released a debut album at the beginning of the year that is impossible to harness into a reference genre. We are at pains, as always, to give a context and therefore we talk about indie folk and of pop artbut doing a disservice to progressive, post-rock and – why not? – jazz. There's a bit of everything in Tapir's offering, which has been around since debut they differentiate themselves from any other emerging band, creating a parallel path which cannot and must not go unnoticed.
It is a short but extremely intense concert. The duration is affected by the limits imposed by the repertoire that has just blossomed with “The Pilgrim, Their God And The King Of My Decrepit Mountain”. A'opera in three actswhere each act effectively corresponds to an EP and in which the narrative structure takes on a role of primary importance. That of the Tapirs! it cannot be limited to the concept of “lore”, so dear to successful bands such as Ghost, Twenty One Pilots, Sleep Token and many others. It's not about creating engagement with the public, but it is an almost literary ambition. As said several times in the very first interviews, Tapir have the goal of becoming something more than just a band that goes on tour and plays concerts. Not only is there care and attention given to the album as an art form, but also towards a complex content, surprising.
Live it is not easy to grasp all these nuances of intent, but others emerge, more concrete and immediate. Tapir's music is high. It is played with excellent technique and creates atmospheres that are difficult to replicate. Simply put: the experience that comes from listening to this collective of fine musicians live is quite unique. Perhaps it is the pure entertainment that is affected a bit, what I actually do space211 Of Turin you can barely glimpse it, in favor instead of listening to pure contemplation. On the small but welcoming stage of the club in via Cigna, a happy island among the fog that envelops the Piedmontese capital as well as almost the entire north-east of Italy, Tapir tell the extraordinary tale of their “The Pilgrim”, the scarlet wanderer who wanders in the most sinister places of nature: dark forests, stormy seas and mountains where the most unlikely creatures hide.
Inexplicably, the band is convinced that it is their first ever concert in Italy, forgetting the summer appearance in Sicily, atYpsigrock of Castelbuono or considering only the headline dates. In this sense, yes: Turin is the first evening of which Tapir are the exclusive protagonists in our country, and for this reason a pinch of emotion that is explicitly shared with the public is not surprising. The keyboard player Will McCrossan he takes on the task of exchanging a few words with the audience, which serve to tear away that invisible veil that remained to defend the fragile world of the Tapirs. From then on, musicians and users become one, inside a beauty that can only explode if stimulated from within.
While on record the narration is intriguing and pushes for investigation, the capillarity of the music in a live setting even overwhelms the story and lulls the spectators into a sound journey in which to get lost. Ike Gray he is an excellent guitarist, but what is most striking is his unusual singing expressiveness. The studio work perhaps doesn't do him justice: his voice has so many facets that the hour of concert isn't enough to reveal them all. This is why at the end of the evening you are left wanting more, to discover more of that literary world, to hear their other melodic intuitions and understand how far their creativity can go.
Click here to see photos of Tapir! toArci Bellezza of Milan (or browse the gallery below)
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
