Friday 28 February 2025
Piano Smithfield, London
*****
Pianist Gleb Kolyadin’s triumpant launch of his new solo album Mobula with the help of a few old friends
Friday night’s gig was to launch Russian pianist Gleb Kolyadin’s new album Mobula. A year ago, Kolyadin and Marjana Semkina from their prog folk band iamthemorning played the same venue, the small and perfectly formed Piano Smithfield in London. That was an emotional event. After his ‘ unforgettable Thailand holidays ‘, Kolyadin had just returned to the UK, following his arrest and imprisonment in Thailand while on tour as a session musician with the Russian dissident rock band Bi-2. He faced deportation to Russia, where the band could have been persecuted for anti-war sentiments. Semkina highlighted the story via social media and an online petition.
Friday’s event was inevitably more low-key but still hugely enjoyable. Kolyadin announced that although this was an album launch, he wouldn’t play it as it’s ‘unplayable.’ By that, he meant that it was recorded with several guest musicians, most of whom weren’t present. Although he had ‘no exact plan’ for the evening, he did announce that he would be joined later by guitarist Charlie Cawood and percussionist Evan Carson for ‘improvisations’ on some of the tracks from Mobula.
Kolyadin began with three piano improvisations. This was a privileged invitation into his private world; it felt as if we were eavesdropping on his innermost thoughts. Sometimes he seemed to be a mere observer, with his eyes closed or his head cocked to one side, as if sharing in the sense of wonder with the spellbound audience. His playing was never showy, but always virtuosic.
Kolyadin took us on a journey through variegated landscapes, a tour through classical music, contemplative passages, blues, jazzy syncopations, and a lilting waltz. His touch was lovely; sometimes delicate, at other times robust. His left hand was very fluid, crossing over his right hand at times in the style of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
The second improvisation had some lovely Debussyian touches (in the style of French composer Claude Debussy), with impressionistic use of the sustain pedal to create a nebulous cloud of sound. It began with glittering cascades in the right hand and a repeated motif that shifted from major to minor. There was a clever echo effect in the right hand. A syncopated section in modernist style, reminiscent of the great Keith Emerson, led to a gorgeous rendition of The Beatles’ classic The Long and Winding Road, with a jazzy twist at the end.
‘What am I going to play?’ mused Kolyadin before the third improvisation. You got the impression he would have been happy to improvise all night; we would have been happy to listen. He began with an angular melody, watching his fingers detachedly. There were lively, joyful cascades of sound, like the pealing of bells, with a growling bass. A jazzy, syncopated passage was perfectly executed. A fast, Baroque section was lightly swung, then a Gershwin-like jazzy groove. For a moment, he was in perfect sync with the rhythm of a shaker that came from behind the bar. He told me afterwards that this was deliberate! A Mussorgskian passage (in the style of Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky) led to a symphonic section. Finally, he delighted us by plucking the grand piano strings with his right hand, creating a metallic, eerie sound.
This was a concert of three halves, and in the second half, Kolyadin played four songs from the new album Mobula. He began with a piano solo, Gaia, gentle and lyrical, with sudden uplifting key changes. He was joined by Evan Carson on percussion for the next three songs. Glimmer featured flowing, lyrical piano. Carson concentrated deeply, letting the music seep into him before he got into the groove. The song ended with majestic chords, and an appreciative shout, ‘Yeah!’ from the audience. It was well-deserved. Radiant began with solo piano, flowing like water. Carson played a single instrument, a drum held on one side while the other hand played it. He’s such a versatile player that he created a whole percussion section on his own. Guitarist Charlie Cawood joined for Dawnlight. Cawood picked out individual notes on his acoustic guitar, like stars in the firmament. Kolyadin took us on an odyssey of different key signatures.
The final third of the concert was an iamthemorning band show, with singer Marjana Semkina joining the other musicians. Her voice sounded a little deeper than usual, almost whispering at times. She explained that she had lost her voice completely the previous day, and that she was there mainly to provide ‘moral support and as a glorified merch seller.’ She did both jobs more than adequately. In fact, if she hadn’t alerted us to her vocal problem we probably wouldn’t have noticed, as she is such a consummate artist and performer. The expanded iamthemorning duo played a short set stretching back over 10 years consisting of ‘Touching II’ from Ocean Sounds (2016), ‘Os Lunatum’ (from Belighted, 2104), ‘Song of Psyche’ (from The Bell, 2019) and ‘Ghost of a Story’ from the 2020 EP Counting the Ghosts. Semkina, with her trademark dark humour, told us that the songs were about ‘dead girls,’ and that her birthday gig in April would be a chance for us to drink to her being one year closer to death. Charlie Cawood brought some lovely guitar touches, with a gorgeous solo on Os Lunatum with double-stopping and strummed chords. On Ghost of a Story, his guitar tone was a lucid as a lute.
But, quite rightly, the evening belonged to Kolyadin. His solo piano encore was romantic at first, with off-beat rhythms across both hands, playing with precision and emotion at the same time, creating little vignettes within a larger narrative. The indefatigable Chris Parkins of the promoter London Prog Gigs suggested there was just time for one more song, unless ‘anyone has got anywhere else to be?’ Nobody had.
The final encore was a pensive piano song, with chords in the right hand falling like rain. It morphed into an elegant dance, with a Baroque feel, and ended with a passionate rising theme, bringing a superb evening to an end.
Gleb Kolyadin’s new album Mobula is out now on Kscope.