Honing a wholly original and mystifying stage demeanour, New Zealand’s innovative folk pioneer Hannah Sian Topp, who’s commonly known to music fans as Aldous Harding, delivered a riveting and alluring performance tonight in Edinburgh’s sumptuous Assembly Rooms, solidifying herself, if she hadn’t already, as one of today’s most stunning and extraordinary performers.
Just after 9pm, Aldous Harding walked slowly to centre stage to much applause. There were five musicians on stage, with guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. She opened the proceedings with ‘Ennui’ off her 2022 album Warm Chris and continued with my favourite of the night ‘Tick Tock’.
Her voice and her hovering guitar were underscored by hauntingly beautiful keys from Mali, who herself was a radiating presence stage side left, as well as overall heightened group vocals of H. Harry with the electric bass and guitar grabbing a larger share of the sound.
As the night went on, and the musicians on the stage revealed themselves to be of otherworldly talents, Aldous’ class and spirit shined brighter — even when she wasn’t staring through the soul of an unsuspecting audience member, she would use her visage to seemingly call on her bandmates to own their moments, and each did with precision.
For a non-show that relied on quality songs and playing, rather than high energy, this was a strangely unsettling affair as Harding wafted around the stage pulling faces and odd shapes.
Aldous maintained an enigmatic silence through much of the set, which only seemed to intensify the cries of adoration from the audience, some of which were simply non-verbal noises of joy. Her biggest hit, ‘The Barrel’, came about midway and had the audience singing along to the beautiful nonsense of lines like “looks like a date is set / show the ferret to the egg”. At one point, after a minute or so of staring and looking away at the audience during a song, Aldous broke her no-banter policy and quipped “and some say I don’t have a sense of humour.” She may seem a little unhinged on stage, but she clearly knows exactly what she’s doing.
Aldous changed between being seated with a guitar and standing for most of the set. She does not bother with on-stage banter, and there was little interaction with the audience. Her comments or observations were few and far between, choosing not to “describe a description” when talking about her songs. She lets her music do the talking and her collection of intricate songs was more than enough to keep the audience entertained.
She has an ethereal presence on stage, as she glides around the stage between songs, reserving her more frantic motions for her tambourine playing. There were some highlights during the set including Tick Tock, Fever, Passion Babe and Lawn. They ended the set with Leathery Whip.
The band returned for one song, Designer, before Aldous finished the set with a languorous solo guitar version of Swell Does the Skull. The audience stood to applaud her off the stage and the long-awaited evening ended. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before she returns to our shores again.
Words & pictures: Stuart Stott @stuarty33