Britten Sinfonia and These New Puritans

The Guardian

Financial Times

Evening Standard

NME.com

The Guardian, Dorian Lynsky
Rating: *****

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing live performances of classic albums but it takes chutzpah to grant that treatment to a record that’s only nine months old, with the Britten Sinfonia no less. Led by 22-year-old twins Jack and George Barnett, Essex’s These New Puritans could not be accused of wanting for ambition. Every element of their Hidden album is present on the Barbican stage, including a Japanese taiko drum the size of a satellite dish, the London Children’s Choir (sinister rather than winsome), and – why not? – a percussionist smashing watermelons with a hammer.

Live performance makes Hidden seem more visceral and varied. It is not so much a fusion of styles as a series of stark oppositions: serenity v violence, classical v digital. The Sinfonia’s intricate lattices of brass and woodwind, conducted by André de Ridder but scored and arranged by Jack, are pitched against the walloping force of George’s rigorous, martial drumming. On Drum Courts-Where Corals Lie, a gentle Elgar melody is ruptured by distorted synth bass from keyboardist Sophie Sleigh-Johnson. You could imagine Jack becoming a soundtrack composer (Orion) as easily as a hip-hop producer (Three-Thousand).

Gaunt and twitchy, he is a deliberately uningratiating frontman, whose introspection enhances the evening’s cultish aura and wards off the smug, cosy atmosphere you sometimes get when bands enlist orchestras and play venues like the Barbican. When the hour-long show ends with a supple new arrangement of the pre-Hidden song En Papier, the Sinfonia acknowledge the standing ovation with smiles and nods, but These New Puritans look as stern and remote as ever, as if the slightest grin might break the spell. Hopefully they will allow themselves a little self-congratulation in private because, after this extraordinary rendition, Hidden sounds every inch a modern classic.

Financial Times, Ludvic Hunter-Tilney
Rating: ***

 

At the Barbican, a foursome in black T-shirts and hoodies shared the stage with the Britten Sinfonia chamber orchestra, a children’s choir and a six-foot-wide Japanese taiko drum. White lights strafed the auditorium. The music veered from somnolent brass and woodwind to a barrage of percussion and rumbling electronic bass lines. This bracing, disorienting occasion was the live rendition of the most startling British album of the year, These New Puritans’ Hidden.

These New Puritans are a backlash against “landfill indie”, the glut of identikit UK guitar bands who followed in The Libertines’ wake in the mid 2000s: a bubble of mediocrity that has thankfully burst.

In an echo of an earlier age of austerity, when art rock succeeded punk in the late 1970s, seriousness and intellectualism are back in vogue. None are more serious or intellectual than These New Puritans. With their stern countenances and wiry physiques, they resemble post-punk forebears such as Gang of Four and PiL. But the Essex quartet – singer Jack Barnett, his twin brother George, Thomas Hein and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson – cite a dizzying range of other musical inspirations, from Elgar to the Wu-Tang Clan.

Session musicians working on Hidden, the group’s second album, were told to imagine “Jamaican dancehall meets Benjamin Britten”. Goodness knows what the session musos made of this imagined meeting between the gay composer of Peter Grimes and the homophobic world of Buju Banton, but somehow it works.

The modern classical influences were highlighted at the Barbican by the Britten Sinfonia, which was conducted by André de Ridder. The lowing horns in “White Chords” evoked ships in fog: Britten’s seaside imagery transplanted from Aldeburgh to These New Puritans’ coastal hometown of Southend-on-Sea. The woodwind of “Canticle” had a mournful, pastoral quality, abruptly shattered by the martial drumming and glitchy electronica of “Drum Courts-Where Coral Lies”.

“We Want War” summed up the violent contrasts of their music, with haunted vocals from the children’s choir, a woozy orchestral accompaniment and savagely pummelling drums. The weak link was Barnett’s voice. On record his vocals have the droning style of one who believes proper singing a bourgeois luxury: the effect is deliberately alienating. On stage, however, reportedly suffering a throat infection, he was at times barely audible. It was as if the creator of all this remarkable musical action was overwhelmed by it.

Evening Standard, Rick Pearson
Rating: ****

It missed out on a Mercury nomination and failed to trouble the Top 40 but on Saturday night These New Puritans’ Hidden album was given the fanfare it thoroughly deserved.

The second album from the Southend group, described by frontman Jack Barnett as “dancehall meets Steve Reich” and regarded by many as one of 2010’s most spectacular, was played in its entirety — with a little help from Britten Sinfonia and New London Children’s Choir.

The Barbican, which was filled close to capacity with an eclectic crowd, provided appropriately reverential surroundings for this ambitious musical experiment. Indeed, as the band sloped on stage, there was a deathly silence while the audience pondered whether it would be appropriate to applaud: it was — and they did.

With the etiquette established, it was time for the music. The thwack of a gong announced We Want War, cueing a barrage of hip-hop beats and stuttering synths courtesy of bandmates Thomas Hein, Sophie Sleigh-Johnson and Jack’s twin brother, George.  

Barnett’s ominous croon was leavened by the angelic voices of the children’s choir, while woodwind fluttered thoughtfully in and out. It was immediately clear: this was going to work.
Still, These New Puritans didn’t make it easy: Barnett’s movements were as nervy as his band’s music, drums weren’t so much hit as beaten within an inch of their life, and audience interaction was simply not on the agenda. Puritans by name, puritans by nature.

However, Fire-Power included what must surely be a Barbican first: the spectacle of a man repeatedly hitting a melon with a hammer (apparently to replicate the sound of a human head exploding). But it was Drum Courts — Where Corals Lie that scored highest: part dreamy lullaby, part aural assault, it was modern music at its finest. 

Mercury nomination or not, with this much talent These New Puritans will soon be recognised for the stars they are.

NME.com
These New Puritans battle illness at ‘Hidden’ show
Band are joined by chamber orchestra, children’s choir… and a melon-smasher

These New Puritans played their critically-acclaimed second album ‘Hidden’ in its entirety last night (Oct 23) at the Barbican Centre in London.

In order to replicate the songs as fully as possible, the band were joined by an extra 46 musicians, comprised of a 30-piece children’s choir, the 12-piece Britten Sinfonia, conductor Andre De Ridder, a pianist and two percussionists.

The latter two members of the ensemble were responsible for replicating the record’s strangest sounds. At different points they could be observed playing a six-foot Japanese taiko drum, metal chains, knives and, on the track ‘Fire-Power’, melons coated in cream crackers, which were hit with a hammer to simulate the sound of a human skull being smashed.

Singer Jack Barnett was suffering from a throat infection, meaning that he was unable to talk at the previous day’s rehearsals. He made it through the show, however, at the end of which he and his band received a standing ovation.

See next week’s NME for the full story of the event.

These New Puritans will now take their second album show into mainland Europe, playing the following dates:
Crossing Border Festival, Den Hague, Holland (November 20)
Centre Pompidou, Grande Salle de Concert, Paris (December 18)

 

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