Hil St Soul’s comfort on stage, and the natural ease of her vocals, mirrored the smooth, neo-soul grooves of her original material.
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Located inconspicuously next to a Sainsburys in West Kensington, Nell’s Jazz and Blues has an interesting aesthetic. It doesn’t have the grandeur of Ronnie Scott’s, or the swift coolness of Hideaway. Comparably, it is quite austere – which is by no means a criticism. It has a ‘rough and ready’ presentation, perhaps reminiscent of a simpler time – and perhaps why Van Morrison is such a big fan.
Supporting Hil St Soul (the stage name of Hilary Mwelwa) at last night’s show was independent artist Alex Parvenu. A self-defined ‘Black bohemian’ sporting a gravity-defying Afro, Parvenu performed a handful of tracks from his upcoming EP Blue Summer. Dealing with the breakdown of a relationship – though, as Parvenu explained, ironically written before his actual breakup – Blue Summer has a funk-jazz character with spiky, smart lyrics. On ‘Sundried Roses’, a spurned Parvenu laments his failed overtures of ‘red roses turned into blue feelings’. As Parvenu explained to the audience with frank honesty, sometimes you just have to say ‘fuck it’ to love. This mentality spawned another of Parvenu’s original songs, ‘Middle Finger’, with the brilliant lyric of ‘I put my middle finger up to love / Now cue the violins’. There is plenty of self-pity, but it’s all catchy.
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It has been almost twenty years since Hil St Soul’s debut album, Soul Organic. As a performer and vocalist, there is nothing contrived or forced about Ms Mwelwa’s delivery. Hil St Soul’s comfort on stage, and the natural ease of her vocals, mirrored the smooth, neo-soul grooves of her original material. Last night, she sang with dulcet, mellow tones, capable of effortless glissando but also more authoritative punch too.
She performed songs spanning her five studio releases. Though comprised mostly of her originals, the set included two covers: firstly, her acoustic rendition of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Until You Come Back To Me’, covered on Soul Organic, which she sung with plaintive delicacy. She also performed a modernised cover of The Isley Brothers’ ‘For The Love Of You’, recorded for her sophomore release, Copasetik & Cool (2002). Her original material, however, is where she shined. Though she has been noted in the past for ‘over-politeness’, the live renditions performed last night added some rawness to songs occasionally held back by studio sheen.
She instilled the importance of remembering one’s roots with the tightly written ‘Don’t Forget The Ghetto’, from 2008’s Black Rose album, where she fluttered between registers and scatted with jazz sensibility. She banished ill-feeling and bitterness with ‘Wash Away’, from the same album, which the band rendered with more reggae flair than the studio version. ‘Pieces’ was the anguished ballad of the set, broken up with band introductions, which smacked of early noughties R&B goodness.
Born in Zambia but raised in London, Hil St Soul has always been praised for holding her own with American artists of a similar neo-soul/R&B persuasion, both from a vocal and songwriting standpoint. The best example of this is ‘All That (+ A Bag O’Chips)’, a cut from Hil’s sophomore which, as Greg Boraman writing for the BBC pointed out, ‘is a sentiment that could only originate within UK shores’. The lyrics trickle with sexual intrigue – ‘you got me salivating / my pupils dilating’ – and the melody has Hil’s characteristic slink. With tight harmonies and backing from The Stewart Sisters, Hil and her band performed this number with charm and wit.
(Image taken from Nell’s Jazz and Blues Facebook page)
