Live

Ida Maria

Bill Cummings 19/03/2008

There's a bespectacled man on the stage, wearing a rather fetching brown 70s cardigan one presumes he dug out from the bottom a moth eaten pile in his local charity shop. It's superstar DJ John Kennedy presenting a night of XFM approved music: The Spencer McGarry Season, Cage The Elephant and Ida Maria. Cut to an hour later…

"I've had a bad day… I've been moody, but this is better" confesses Norwegian songstress Ida Maria, at tonight's XFM approved night at Cardiff's sold out (actually half full) local Barfly dive. A natural live performer, flanked by her towering wild haired guitarist, and shorter balder bassist, she gesticulates (clinging to her own notes), hangs from the ceiling, and drops to her knees in guitar throttling mode, her body conveying this set of solid rock/pop songs.

Resembling a young Bjork she's all cherubic, Nordic cheeks, huge, mysterious, cat like eyes, topped off by a regal top hat. The girl can sing too, her voice resounds with a gritty power that reaches through your ribcage and devours your heart a bit like a young Joplin, before switching effortlessly to a tone more in common with Nina Pearson of the Cardigans. And the Britpop comparisons don't end there, the bitter sweet jangle of "Queen Of My Heart" raises a smile to the face with its toe tapping beat allied to jaunty melodic lines in a chorus that sweeps across your brow rather like the work of 90s acts like Echobelly or early P J Harvey, while the muscular brooding dynamics of "Drive Away My Heart" are a treat. It's a roller coaster of drum rolls and dexterous guitars, augmented by Ida's clawing, almost gothic vocals ("Drive away my heart tonight because/ you said no longer mine. Love will be my grave")...

There still remains the suspicion throughout that Ida Maria and her band are a little conventional, a little too polished and formulaic. You know every contrived "rock 'n' roll" move before she's done it, you can see every note coming a mile off. Her set does sag a little mid way through too; the rest of her material doesn't quite match up to the highlights just yet.

So she isn't breaking the mould (then again, if you want Iranian bum trumpeters perhaps try Radio 3), but in a live setting she makes this kind of solidness a virtue, embodying every note from sinking low and dark, on the confessional, end of the night bar room balladry of "," or charging around the stage on recent single "Oh My God." The crowd applauds at one point but it's a false ending and the song careers back into view for one last hurrah. She doesn't even play her "hit" either, no recent single "Stella" tonight - one presumes she got the pull after running fifteen minutes over her allotted set time....

Ida Maria has much potential, and one can see why any hungry record company exec would invest in her, even on an "off night" she's an enjoyable live performer with a voice of rare power and subtlety. That she has a "good look" is a bonus. Steve Lamacq has already bestowed the poisoned "indie girl pinup" upon her (hopefully she won't go the way of other contenders Hilary JJ72 or Charolotte Hatherly). If she can push her material up another notch, adding diversity to the handful of good pop songs she already possess, she could just be the best Norwegian export to this country since the baby faced assassin Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.