Clearly, Nai Palm’s name doesn’t have quite the influence you might have imagined before her magnificent, guitar-strapped soliloquy. Clearly, the frontwoman of the fabulous Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote is little known as a solo artist.
After triumphing last year with her band in front of tens of thousands of festival-goers, she performed on Monday in a half-full Club Soda, but overflowing with talent and magnetism on stage.
Wow, what a talent bomb!
Nai Palm is undoubtedly one of the most influential singers, musicians, composers and lyricists of my last few decades of music chronicling.
But without a band? Alone on guitar? I admit to having doubted for a little while, although I really like Needle Paw, her solo album released in 2017, some of whose tracks would be covered in front of us.
And? It’s working!
Her electric guitar accompaniment is personal and virtuoso, carrying the roughness and irreverence of punk, but also the finesse and sophistication of jazz and an absolutely irresistible soul/R&B spirit.
Kaleidoscopic hair and clothing, a luscious, perfectly assumed physique, disarming smiles, humor, tenderness, vulnerability, violence, strength and resilience. With her perfectly designed scratches and riffs, she draws us into her vocal undulations, onomatopoeia and bursts of power. She whips up the eggs and fills the audience with blissful admiration.
Nai Palm is an exceptional creature! One can only bow before such talent.
Another magical feature of Monday evening was the solid performance by Montrealer Hawa B and her colleague Félix Petit. We’ve already praised the talent and singularity of this singer, songwriter, composer and producer, and her stage presence is now concrete, her unique and rich blend of musical referents, both instrumental and electro, currently unrivalled. The great Nai Palm was also under her spell, underlining the talent of this woman with “superstar” potential. I’m not the one saying it! And I’m telling you, it’s looking good for Hawa B’s future on the international circuit. Opening acts for Hiatus Kaiyote?
