Supporting the release of his third solo album ‘Planets + Persona’, Richard Barbieri presented an intimate live show that covered many facets of his recording career from JAPAN to PORCUPINE TREE.
While Barbieri’s rig featured the expected all mod cons like a MacBook, controllers and a Roland V-Synth, the set-up also included his beloved Sequential Prophet 5 and Roland System 700 Lab Series.
Accompanied by the versatile Swedish musician Lisen Rylander Löve on saxophone, percussion and voice manipulations, the pair began sedately with ‘Night Of The Hunter – (3) Innocence Lost’ from ‘Planets & Persona’
Utilising a wide cinematic spectrum of electronic and organic colours, the show started in earnest with the sleazy rhythmic adventure of ‘Solar Sea’. The track’s atonal jazz feel with its spacey momentum saw Löve screeching into a Cold War vintage Russian Army microphone, while drowning her eerie larynx with a variety of gadgets. With a warping System 700 bass, it was part avant techno and part ambient as Barbieri moved across his four keyboards to provide texture and atmosphere.
Löve left the stage for Barbieri to perform alone in the evening’s first big surprise. After a series of improvised sweeps and shimmers, the iconic metallic cascade of JAPAN’s ‘Ghosts’
Barbieri handled the familiar detuned percussive blips on his Prophet 5 before playing the haunting string tones on the V-Synth as a drum loop kicked in. “Oh, I didn’t expect that much applause!” responded the Catford boy after the crowd roared with approval at the end.
Next, the rumbling sub-bass squelches of ‘Medication Time’ from Barbieri’s debut solo long player ‘Things Buried’
Barbieri continued with the work of his former band by playing the gentle “dolphin music” of ‘The Experience Of Swimming’
Löve returned for ‘Unholy’ with the widescreen vibe countered by unsettling Nordic voice samples, before being followed by the spacey avant jazz of ‘New Found Land’ which was originally written by Barbieri for PORCUPINE TREE.
During this sequence of music, Löve added a kalimba to her repertoire which enhanced the electro- acoustic balance with an authentic ethnic touch.
Closing the main part of the show with ‘Hypnotek’ from Barbieri’s second album ‘Stranger Inside’
To rapturous cheers, Barbieri returned for an encore and with the self-deprecating humour he had displayed throughout the evening, he joked: “I didn’t want to wait too long, in case it died down”.
He treated the appreciative crowd with a superb electronic adaptation of PORCUPINE TREE’s ‘Idiot Prayer’. With the new arrangement at times sounding like SIMPLE MINDS’ ‘Love Song’, it was a fabulously energetic conclusion to proceedings.
Unafraid to delve into his glorious history, RICHARD BARBIERI ably showed why he is one of the most inventive synthesizer technicians that the UK has ever produced.
His modest, down-to-earth demeanour with a willingness to stay in the background has perhaps stopped him from being better known, but the music he produces today is still wonderfully intriguing and deserves further investigation.
‘Planets & Persona’
https://www.facebook.com/RichardBarbieriOfficial/
http://www.kscopemusic.com/artists/richard-barbieri/
Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price
30th March 2017
is released by Columbia Records in CD, deluxe 2CD, double vinyl LP and digital formats
and the event featured a number of artists from different fields, each with their own story to tell on the issue.
, chronicled his own personal problems with depression. There was also the terrific bonus of his older 
with such gems as ‘Full Moon Blue’ and ‘The Kodo Song’, which were both performed to a rather appreciative audience.
, accompanied by arty background projections. But the big hits like ‘Breakthrough’ from 
were also included and inevitably got the audience pumping.
to the original.
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