Corinne Bailey Rae at Roundhouse
Corinne Bailey Rae was a soul-pop sweetheart at 26 years old when she released her breezy debut album featuring hit singles Like a Star and Put Your Records On. Tonight, at an exclusive concert at London’s Roundhouse, she and the Guildhall Session Orchestra presented her fourth, and Mercury-nominated, album Black Rainbows. A bold and seamless collaboration, it was a transcendent experience through experimental, genre-defying sound.
The set opened with an ethereal overture, where flutes, light woodwinds and shimmering chimes created a whimsical atmosphere. The gentle sweeping sounds were grounded by the dramatic resonance of strings, brass and timpani, and the lofty beat of a drum, establishing the complex high-concept performance we embarked on.
Rae emerged, waving what looked like a witchcraft artefact as we transitioned to the prelude of A Spell, A Prayer. The grandeur and anticipation dissipated into a mesh of heavenly operatic vocals as soft beams of light speckled the stage. Under her divine witches’ spell, Rae became human again only once she spoke.
Erasure squelched and squealed through America’s dark history with a heavy, punk-rock opening and infused with unsettling distortion, as Rae chanted, “They Typex’d all the Black kids out the picture.”
Black Rainbows is inspired by Rae’s seven-year interaction with the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago – a “groundbreaking Cathedral of Black Archives” – comprising books, sculpture, records, furniture and problematic objects from America’s past. An “obsessional journey” through painful stories that “felt like answers”, the album peels back the layers on these artefacts that “refused to be silent” and continue to “buzz with life”.
Rae confirmed her new branding as unafraid to break creative ground. Red Horse was soulful and deeply moving, defined by elements of alternative R&B. New York Transit Queen, a high-energy punk tribute to 1950s pageant winner Audrey Smaltz, lit up the audience with rhythmic clapping, whilst the serene piano ballad Peach Velvet Sky paid emotional tribute to Harriet Jacobs.
Rae became more than a singer as she led us through these stories. Each song was presented with a crafted narration lit up by a lengthy orchestral prelude or coda. She weaned us through a technicoloured tunnel, telling stories of Black enslavement, erasure, struggle, resistance and power, dropping us off in a liminal space of true artistry when she sang.
A personal favourite was the 50s American bluesy feel of He Will Follow You with His Eyes, which erupted into a joyful resistance of white beauty standards. Rae had the audience at every flair of her fingertips and soulful ornamentation. Her intricate storytelling peaked with cathartic anthem Put It Down, where she danced through the audience in an act of releasing internal struggles and finding peace.
Guildhall’s crafted orchestral arrangements reimagined Rae’s bold new sound and told the story of the album in a way no one else could have.
Lara Hedge
Photos: Mike Garnell
For further information and future events, visit Corinne Bailey Rae’s website here.
Watch the video for the single He Will Follow You With His Eyes here:
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