Zoe Basha breezed into Belfast like a woman possessed. It was her third time gracing the stage of the Duncairn Arts Centre in North Belfast, but her first time fronting her own show with her own band and her long fermenting début album in tow, and she couldn’t wait to share it all with the decent sized audience. GAMBLE, produced by Basha herself, was recorded in Dundalk and was released on April 17 (look out for our review soon).
Basha took to the stage alone, threw back her head and launched into a confident a cappella rendering of the traditional folk song A Nightingale Sings. Then she was joined by her touring band - Ultan Lavery on keys, Jessie Whitehead on fiddle and James Christie on drums - for a ten song set. Basha strapped on her huge (at least it appeared huge against her slight frame) vintage arch-top acoustic Gibson guitar and launched into Same Swallows Swooping. Her deft fingerpicking and her own swooping vocals - she has a range from almost contralto to sweet falsetto - were impressive from the off. That song, she explained, was written while she was living in France, working on a land commune, having left her base in Ireland many times on various projects abroad over the past thirteen years. She lived in her van there in France, but eventually returned to Ireland, and that van has ended up rusting in a field in Cavan (probably along with many others). Travelling Shoes was written when she was 17 and starting to busk and travel, but was still relevant when she was 27, she explains, ‘don’t expect me to be here/to greet you in the morning’. It’s probably those years of busking that have given her this easy stage presence and the confidence to encourage the initially somewhat inhibited audience to ‘sweet heckle’. Gamble, the album’s title track, was written when she was alone in Galway, reflecting on being alone and half-hoping to run into someone who might too have baggage, but that it would at least be functional baggage. Jessie Whitehead’s fiddle was to the fore in the arrangement on this one.
On Worried, Basha ponders the wisdom of allowing her true feelings to come to the fore in a relationship and being judged for doing so, ‘I’m worried you’ll call me a child’. She follows this with an Appalachian traditional ballad, accompanied by just a droning fiddle, and synths from magician Ultan Lavery.
It’s clear from tonight’s gig that folk and jazz music are prominent among Basha’s wide musical influences, and she mentions that she has spent time in New Orleans. Her choice of guitar is therefore no surprise, bestowing strong jazzy overtones on her compositions. Come Find Me Lonesome, also written while on the road in France, has a particularly smooth soulful groove, and it allows Ultan Lavery to let loose on those keys. We get some more covers - False Sir John is an Appalachian ballad from the singing of Jean Ritchie and Basha gives it a full band treatment, as opposed to Ritchie’s a cappella version, and a jazzy Jimmy Rodgers two-step, Sweet Papa Hurry Home, complete with yodels.
Closing with the single Dublin Street Corners and with an encore of Billie Holiday’s Gloomy Sunday, the permanent smile on Zoé Basha’s face tells that she’s thoroughly enjoying brining her songs to life on this tour. Try to catch her on the rest of her Irish dates or in France and Belgium soon.
Eilís Boland - review and photograph