News : 15th March 2001

pook1The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble arrived in London last night as part of their UK tour for a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Jocelyn’s music has its own distinctive style, which manages to weave in strings, electronic sounds and a diverse range of vocal styles to produce a mesmerising ethereal atmosphere.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the performance was the effort put into the visual side of the concert (courtesy of visual artist Dragan Aleksic ). As well as projected film, the musicians spent the early part of the performance back-lit behind a screen, or encased in lit opaque columns on the stage.

Jocelyn has certainly gone from strength to strength since her days performing with Virginia. Perhaps best known for contributing the music to an Orange mobile phone TV ad, Jocelyn has also made her name as the composer of film soundtracks, including the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut. A lot of the material performed for the concert was taken from her new album Untold Things, with a few nods to her earlier music from the albums Deluge and Flood .

The first few songs also incorporated samples taken from Jocelyn’s answerphone(!) which managed to project a haunting, wistful atmosphere. Singers Melanie Pappenheim and Parvin Cox demonstrated extraordinary vocal skills, but Jocelyn also stepped forward to sing on one particular song, revealing a surprising delicate singing style.

This concert managed to demonstrate Jocelyn’s strength as a musician and performer and provided a thoroughly surprising and enjoyable evenings entertainment.