Here, in a back corner of Hackney’s EartH theatre, late on a Wednesday night, pointed by the heavy-aired introspection of the music pushing out from the stage, I am compelled to look up. I see the decoratively segmented skylight, brokenly framing this small rectangle of dark blue, and I am reminded of the embracing importance of live music.
EartH is a uniquely beautiful venue. It is both sprawling and intimate. Every beer can cracked by a patron is heard in reverberations through the entire room; its echoes are cold but unifying, making every ear tenderly privy to any and all whispers, as if sat shoulder to shoulder with everyone here. The Antlers belong in this wide, tiered, echo-y space, just as the Antlers belong in this closeness.
Their set opens with the same track that their latest, seventh, LP, Blight, does – ‘Consider the Source’ – its lyrics tracking the inescapable consumerism of modern life, but its instrumentals and delivery laden with sorry understanding. It’s seemingly a song about guilt; Blight reflects on climate change, and so is both validating and sad, an acknowledgement of the hole in our collective sinking ship. As well as a chunk of Blight, the setlist also features softer reworkings of tracks from their perhaps most acclaimed LP, 2007’s Hospice, and 2014’s Familiars. All, though, are received by the audience with equal awestruck joy.
Peter Silberman, The Antlers. Photo: Klara Weiss
The Antlers here is singer/songwriter Peter Silberman and drummer Michael Lerner, joined for a few songs by Julie Odell, who delivered her own set prior as support. All three have a quiet but commanding stage presence – a command proven by the revering hush the crowd maintain during even the softest songs. Silberman’s lyrics are introspective, and this is mirrored in his between-song musings, though his thoughts earnestly reach to the crowd in search of communion. The connection they forge with the listeners is sincere, endearing, and not all serious; Odell received rapturous applause when confiding to us “every single show I’ve been worried that my fly is down, but I’m very happy to report that it is not down tonight”.
Musically, The Antlers are more pared back than ever, but not weakly so. The combination of Silberman’s vocals and Lerner’s percussion can dip so eggshell-delicate that it feels as if it could be carried right away by the draught in the room. Yet the strength it holds us aloft and captive with is unshaking. Odell’s occasional belts, then, when they break through the membrane of this sparseness on her guest spots, seem to make the very walls shiver. Silberman’s voice goes between buttery and pain-laden, and Lerner’s percussion, whatever the intensity or speed, orbits dutifully.
There’s a bareness, and openness to the stage as well as the musical arrangements. EartH’s stage is vast, and The Antlers have just two (sometimes three) musicians, a handful of lamps and monitors to occupy it. When awash with blue spotlights, it could be an ocean. But the set the Antlers deliver needs this space to ring out in, such is its expanse.
EartH, The Antlers, these wooden benches we sit on, the slight chill of March, and indeed the artists’ performance: all here is natural as it comes.
The Antlers with Julie Odell. Photo: Klara Weiss
Header photo: Klara Weiss
