U:MACK Present Vetiver +Very special guests Mi and L'au Thursday 31 august Whelans of wexford street Doors 8pm Tickets EUR16 from Road, City Discs, Wav Box office 1890 2000 78 online at www.tickets.ie Listen to Vetiver at www.myspace.com/vetiverse Listen to Mi and L'au at www.younggodrecords.com We're delighted to announce a very special double bill of Vetiver and Mi and L'au in whelans on Thursday 31 august, the day before Electric Picnic, where vetiver perform as part of Devendra Banhart's band Vetiver Under the imprint Vetiver, Andy Cabic has been writing and performing songs in an acoustic manner for a few years now, often accompanied on cello by Alissa Anderson, and at times on guitar by Devendra Banhart. It is quite common to see Jim Gaylord playing his violin on stage with them as well, as Vetiver keeps growing and sprouting up in unexpected ways. Released two years after the band's eponymous debut release, which stood out as one of 2004's finest releases, new album To Find Me Gone is the second album by the ever-evolving band. A lush, beautiful album, it cements Andy's growing reputation as one of the finest songwriters of his generation. Since his last album, Andy has spent long stints on the road, touring occasionally with Vetiver, and regularly as a member of Devendra Banhart's band. Written and recorded in free time during that period, 'To Find Me Gone' is a freer and more mature effort, markedly shifting Vetiver's sound into a different direction. Lyrically, it's very much a 'road' record, about travel and distances, comings and goings, people falling in and out of lives and wondering where the time goes. Moving away from folk references and the simpler minimalism of the first album, there is more of a West Cost '70s feel evident on the new record. With a focused depth and controlled studio-led expansiveness, the arrangements are significantly different, utilising greater instrumentation and a broader range, including screaming electric guitar solos, pedal steel, layered strings, and electronic flourishes, alongside songs that wouldn't sound amiss on the first album. Alongside Cabic, the players on this album included mainstays Devendra, Alissa Anderson, Otto Hauser (drums), and Kevin Barker (guitar). Mi and L'au Mi and L'au met in Paris a few years back. Mi is Finnish and was working as a model to make ends meet and L'au (who's French) was working in the music industry (soundtracks, I think). They fell deeply and immediately in love, and after a short period of moving from apartment to apartment in Paris, they gave everything up and decided to move to the woods in Finland, so they could be alone together in peace and to spend their time discovering each other and their music. They live in a small cabin in complete isolation with the barest of essentials (except in the brutal Finnish winter, when they move to Helsinki) and they spend virtually all their time making music together in solitude. They are pure and gentle souls (Devendra's song, from oh me oh my "gentle soul" was written for L'au - the two had met in Paris when Devendra was wandering there, and L'au took him in, and they also made music together). Their music is bare and austere, made with simple instrumentation - voice, acoustic guitars, and other very sparse orchestrations. I wouldn't say it compares at all to the current crop of neo hippy "weird folk" etc. It has the naked quality of certain early Nico recordings, or Chet Baker...soulful and elegant, without being touchy-feely or confessional. Their music reminds me of how one might imagine a winter Finnish landscape - haunting and pure