Alain Johannes At Amoeba, Tuesday, October 5th, 2010: From The Deepest Part Of His Being -by Alyson Camus

Johannes, which has collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Chris Cornell, PJ Harvey, Mark Lanegan, was releasing yesterday his first solo album, ‘Spark’, through Rekords Rekords.

When you know the story behind the making of ‘Spark’, it becomes heartbreaking and very heavy as he composed the songs for his wife Natasha Shneider, who died from cancer 2 years ago. Although I did not know that before going to his show at Amoeba, I found his performance truly moving as if he was singing from the deepest part of his being.

He played most of the songs with this tiny guitar which produced a high pitched melodious sound contrasting with his lamenting voice which could remind Peter Gabriel’s at times, and the acoustic nature of the show probably reinforced the emotion.

His playing style was impressive with fast strumming, finger picking, flamenco-like at times, almost middle-age-sounding at other times, an interesting mix of rhythms and atmospheres, whereas parts of melodies were escaping occasionally from this avalanche of chords.

He opened the set with the vibrant ‘Endless Eyes’, a direct homage to his wife, and finished it with ‘Make God Jealous’, after playing among others ‘Return to you’, ‘Speechless’, ‘Spider’ with its delicate melody, ‘Gentle Ghosts’, and the heartfelt ‘Unfinished plan’.

The melody was most of the time mostly accomplished by his voice itself , whereas the tiny guitar was only there to build the atmosphere,  while the vocals were painfully released.
Sometimes, it was as if some poppy melody was trapped inside a more complex song with multiple arrangements and influences, and especially a lot of chords.

But Johannes’ music had nothing to do with a funeral, it may have sounded sad and melancholic at times but it was also vigorous and spirited like life itself.

Watch him perform ‘Make God Jealous’