Formed post-pandemic, the first live gig featuring the band Glebe was in January 2023 at The Spice of Life in Soho. In the last two years, duo frontmen, Chris Bland (keyboards) and Kieran Gunter (guitars) have been hard at work recording their debut album entitled Gaudí on Daggio Records.
Their album launch at Crazy Coqs, almost two years to the day later, has seen some of the songs they featured in their early days come to fruition with more detail and confidence.
Both, in their element on stage sharing the stories behind their music and bantering with their bandmates, it’s clear that this project has been a labour of love featuring the talent of their friends and showcasing all the people who helped bring it to life.
The most engaging part of this concert, over time, has been the order in which their story is told. Elements of these songs As Blue As You Once Were start the concert off with an excited, yet terrifying feeling devoted to that experience of heading off into the real world as a young adult, but also brings such reality to the opening of an album launch – relatable and palpable.
Both Bland and Gunter use their real life stories, memories, feelings and experiences to write compositions that are touching and creative. You can almost see the cyclers down the L’iseran – a mountain passage in the Alps in France and vocalist Tara Minton’s rendition of Bland’s tune Ruby lifts the surprising melody as though it’s floating, but equally grounds it with a bit of her signature sass.
Dom Pusey played tenor sax and even bass clarinet, but his forte was on soprano saxophone. Special guest (he’s not on the album, but a welcome dep) Luke Fowler on bass and Filippo Galli held down the fort well, with a good groove and moments to break out.
The track for which the album is named, Gaudí’s Blues, was Gunter’s attempt to imagine what it would be like if Gaudí wrote a blues. Featuring piano and guitar soli lines, moody, funky and haunting bits and some wild trading at the end, I’d say Gaudí would have been impressed.